My friend Dylan Thomas

by Daniel Jones

The chance discovery of a long unpublished letter from Dylan Thomas which appears here for the first time, lies behind the writing of this intensely personal portrait, drawn by a man whose friendship with him spanned some twenty-eight years of the poet's short life.

After many years of silence Daniel Jones sets out to dispel at least some of the misapprehensions that have grown up about the man and his life in the years since his death. For there is mystery in Dylan Thomas' character, work, life, and even death; the author, recognising this, is in a unique position to cast some light on the mystery, and he does so, but not without stimulating the reader to seek his own conclusions.

Relying almost exclusively on his own recollections, Daniel Jones writes of the early days of friendship at school and at home, the changing relationship over the years, the poet's knowledge of literature and the arts, his attitude to his own writing, his qualities as reader and broadcaster, and the growth of the 'Dylan' myth.

Throughout this highly readable and entertaining account, with its many revealing and sometimes humorous anecdotes, the author is constantly seeking to 'lay the ghost to raise the man'.

116 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Daniel Jenkyn Jones OBE was a Welsh composer of classical music, who worked in Britain. He used both serial and tonal techniques. He is best known for his quartets and thirteen symphonies (some composed in his own system of 'Complex Metres') and for his song settings for Dylan Thomas's play, Under Milk Wood.