One of the twentieth century's most gifted writers, Dylan Thomas created a vital, lusty, antic world of truly memorable characters. This Signet Classic offers a distinguished selection of his work - twenty stories plus all of his famous unfinished nove, Adventures in the Skin Trade. The title piece relates to the adventures of Samuel Bennet, a young innocent embarked on a wold pilgrimage through modern London. The stories range in theme from life and love to nature and madness, but all are written with the extravagant humor, the brilliant imagery, the magic awareness of the true poet. The New York Times wrote of Adventures in the Skin Trade: "The human warmth keeps bubbling up through the satire. ...Thomas' last work of fiction, in addition to its intrinsic interest, has a meaningfulness comparable to that of Keats' letters and Yeats' memoirs." The New York Herald Tribune found it a "vein of pure gold." And The Saturday Review called Dylan Thomas "a genius." With an Afterword by Vernon Watkins.
Author
Dylan Marlais Thomas (1914-1953) was a Welsh poet who wrote in English. Many regard him as one of the 20th century's most influential poets. In addition to poetry, Thomas wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, with the latter frequently performed by Thomas himself. His public readings, particularly in America, won him great acclaim; his booming, at times, ostentatious voice, with a subtle Welsh lilt, became almost as famous as his works. His best-known work includes the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood and the celebrated villanelle for his dying father, "Do not go gentle into that good night." Appreciative critics have also noted the superb craftsmanship and compression of poems such as "In my craft or sullen art" and the rhapsodic lyricism of Fern Hill.
