THOMAS, Dylan

Under Milk Wood

London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1954. Item #06627

“To begin at the beginning…” - Dylan Thomas’s Masterpiece for Voices
A Bright First Edition in Unfaded Jacket

THOMAS, Dylan. Under Milk Wood. A Play for Voices. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, [1954].

First edition. Small octavo (7 1/4 x 4 7/8 inches; 184 x 124 mm.). x, 101, [1, blank] pp.

Publisher’s light brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Minimal and faint tape stains to endpapers from an old jacket reinforcement.

Original green dust jacket printed in black, with photographic portrait of Thomas on the rear panel. Small pieces of tape at head and foot of folds. Now in a protective cover. Near fine, bright, and notably unfaded, with only minimal wear to spine extremities and a small light stain at the top of the front panel. A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket.

Under Milk Wood, Thomas’s final and most celebrated work, is a “play for voices” - a richly lyrical evocation of a single day in the fictional Welsh fishing village of Llareggub. Written for radio and first broadcast posthumously in 1954, it stands as one of the great achievements of 20th-century poetic drama.

“To begin at the beginning…” - the work unfolds as a tapestry of dreams, gossip, desires, and inner lives - comic, tender, and deeply humane.

A landmark in radio drama and poetic prose. Thomas’s final completed work, published shortly after his death in 1953
A defining portrayal of Welsh identity and village life. Regularly performed, recorded, and adapted

It occupies a unique position - bridging poetry, theatre, and broadcasting - much as Samuel Beckett would do in a more austere register.

Price: $650.00