Dylan Thomas's magisterial stories all in one volume, available in a beautiful new paperback edition.

This gathering of all Dylan Thomas's stories?ranging chronologically from the dark, almost surrealistic tales of Thomas's youth to such gloriously rumbustious celebrations of life as ?A Child's Christmas in Wales? and ?Adventures in the Skin Trade??charts the progress of ?The Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive? toward his mastery of the comic idiom. Here, too, are stories originally written for radio and television and, in a short appendix, the schoolboy pieces first published in the Swansea Grammar School Magazine. A high point of the collection is Thomas's ?Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog,? a vivid collage of memories from his Swansea childhood that combines the lyricism of his poetry with the sparkle and sly humor of Under Milk Wood. Also here is the fiction from Quite Early One Morning, a collection planned by Thomas shortly before his death.

Altogether there are more than forty stories, providing a rich and varied literary feast and showing Dylan Thomas in all his intriguing variety?somber fantasist, joyous word-spinner, and irrepressible comedian of smalltown Wales.

Dylan Thomas, born in Swansea in 1914, is perhaps Wales' best-known writer, widely considered to be one of the major poets of the 20th century, and many of his greatest poems, such as 'Fern Hill' and 'Do not go gentle into that good night' remain among the nation's favorites. As well as poetry, Dylan Thomas wrote numerous short stories and scripts for film and radio - none more popular than his radio play UNDER MILK WOOD (ISBN 9780811229937), which is considered by many to be his masterpiece. He led a fascinating and tempestuous life, permeated by love affairs and reckless bouts of drinking, which led him to claim that he had beast, angel and madman within him. There have been several film adaptations of his fascinating life, which ended all too soon in 1953 when he collapsed and died in New York shortly after his 39th birthday. A memorial stone commemorating his life and work was unveiled in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1982.

This gathering of all Dylan Thomas's stories, ranging chronologically from the dark, almost surrealistic tales of Thomas's youth to such gloriously rumbustious celebrations of life as A Child's Christmas in Wales and Adventures in the Skin Trade, charts the progress of "The Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive" toward his mastery of the comic idiom.

Here, too, are stories originally written for radio and television and, in a short appendix, the schoolboy pieces first published in the Swansea Grammar School Magazine. A highpoint of the collection is Thomas's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, a vivid collage of memories from his Swansea childhood that combines the lyricism of his poetry with the sparkle and sly humor of Under Milk Wood. Also here is the fiction from Quite Early One Morning, a collection planned by Thomas shortly before his death.

Altogether there are more than forty stories, providing a rich and varied literary feast and showing Dylan Thomas in all his intriguing variety-somber fantasist, joyous word-spinner, comedian of smalltown Wales. The book includes an entertaining, informative reflection on Thomas by another Welsh poet and storyteller, Leslie Norris, as well as a brief listing of publication details by Professor Walford Davies, editor of Dylan Thomas: Early Prose Works.