Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) - photo 1

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Lot 180
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 9 450
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1108980
Lot 180 | Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Estimate value
£ 8 000 – 12 000
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Series of one autograph letter and nine typed letters signed ('Dylan Thomas') to Richard Church and others at his publishers, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 5 Cumdonkin Drive, Swansea, and Polgigga, Cornwall, 8 October 1935 - 1 September 1936
One page, 255 x 186mm, in autograph, and approximately 8 pages in typescript, stamps (e.g. 'Destroy after 7 years') and annotations of J.M. Dent staff; with 10 retained carbon-copy letters to Thomas, and three related items.

'I am not, never have been, never will be, or could be for that matter, a surrealist': preparing his second collection, 25 Poems, for publication. In the first letter, Thomas is struggling with illness, but hoping that 'in a few days, I hope, I can get down to sub-editing my poems ... I haven't titled any of them. The first poem ['Altarwise by owl-light'], divided into six parts of fourteen lines each, (each to be printed on a separate page, for, although the poem as a whole is to be a poem in, and by, itself, the separate parts can be regarded as individual poems) is so far incomplete; there will be at least another four parts'. In Richard Church's response, on 26 November, he accuses Thomas of surrealism, upon which he looks 'with abhorrence': Thomas denies this forthrightly on 9 December, 'I am not, never have been, never will be, or could be for that matter, a surrealist ... I think I do know what some of the main faults of my writing are: immature violence, rhythmic monotony, frequent muddleheadedness, and a very much overweighted imagery that leads too often to incoherence. But every line is meant to be understood', claiming that he is so uniformed about surrealism that he has had to ask a friend what it is. On 17 March 1936 he responds to Church's urging that he focus on poems similar to those in his first collection, 'I feel it would be dishonest of me to attempt to get published a complete book of "simple" poems'. He writes in mid-April to apologise for having no further poems to add, but on 1 May he responds with pleasure to Church's agreement to publish the collection, and promises six further poems, also discussing plans for a prose work, 'What I've been thinking of lately is a book about Wales with a slender central theme of make-belief, a certain amount of autobiography, and also a factual Journey of the more popular kind'. A letter of 22 June refers to the dispatch of five poems (one of them 'And death shall have no dominion'); he is 'about to go into the country again – the only place for me, I think: cities are death', and adds ruefully 'you'll be amused to know that I'm reading some poems to the Surrealist Exhibition on the 26th of this month'. The last letters in the sequence discuss the title of the collection, rejecting the suggested 'Poems in Progress' ('I don't think I understand what it means'), and mention sending 'a fairly recent photograph of myself'.
Place of origin:United Kingdom
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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