Dylan Thomas.

The industrial coastal town of Swansea, Wales, welcomed Dylan Thomas on October 27, 1914, during the First World War. He later called it ugly, lovely. His father, David John Thomas, was a schoolmaster. His mother, Florence Hannah Williams, read to him during his frequent childhood illnesses, including asthma and bronchitis. Those readings nurtured his love of language. Thomas attended Bishop Gore School, where his literary ambitions began.

Thomas published his first volume, Eighteen Poems, in 1934. It established him in British poetry. He wrote more collections, short stories, and screenplays through the 1940s, typically earning £250 per script. In 1951 he produced the poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Two years later, the BBC broadcast his radio play Under Milk Wood, subtitled A play for voices. Thomas also wrote film scripts including The Doctor and the Devils and Rebecca’s Daughters; both were adapted into films decades after his death.

Thomas married Caitlin Macnamara on July 11, 1937. Together they had three children: Llewelyn Edouard Thomas born January 30, 1939, Aeronwy Bryn Thomas born March 1942, and Colm Garan Hart Thomas born July 1949. Chronic alcoholism marked his life and worsened over time. On November 9, 1953, at age 39, he died after a drinking bout at the White Horse Tavern in New York City’s West Village. The death certificate listed the cause as an insult to the brain, a phrase with no medical meaning that has fueled speculation about incompetent doctors. Dylan and Caitlin are buried side by side in Laugharne, South Wales.

Dylan Thomas’s poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is one of the most quoted works in English. He appears on the sleeve artwork of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 1967 and on Marillion’s Clutching at Straws 1987. In the 1995 film Dangerous Minds, a Dylan Thomas poem is paired with a Bob Dylan song for a student exam. Thomas never spoke the Welsh language, though he is regarded as a classic Welsh writer. He is best remembered for Under Milk Wood and his emotional poetry.