In the original dustsheet. Navy cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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The trouble with people who write or talk about Dylan Thomas is that they tend to concentrate on the bawdy side of his life and not on what he was really about ie writing, writing his prose, his poetry and Under Milk Wood. I quite enjoyed Fryer’s book because it brought in so many of the people he knew – Mervyn Levy, Pamela Hansford Johnson, Vernon Watkins and not just writers, the composer Dan Jones was clearly an important influence.. Also his magnificent voice and his relationship with the BBC. Yes, I quite enjoyed Fryer’s book. I am not Welsh, I am thoroughly English but I’ve lived in Wales for a good part of the past 60 years and having travelled about a good deal, particularly in West Wales, know the place better than the average native resident. When I arrived in Wales 1956, Swansea still lay in ruins from wartime bombing; my first port of call was Ralph the Books. I spent hours in Ralph Wishart’s bookshop and bought quite a few books from him, (mostly Welsh) though I always got the feeling he was rather reluctant to part with them. I remember the portrait of Dylan that hung in his shop but sadly I was too late to encounter the writer, though I did know his doctor! It all seems such a long time ago now, but I am enjoying the Centenary celebrations and having a grand-daughter at Swansea University, I still go on the occasional visit.

Jonathan Fryer is a British writer, lecturer and broadcaster based in London, though he hails originally from Manchester. His birth name was Graeme Leslie Morton but that was changed when he was adopted into a business family in Eccles, as recounted in his memoir “Eccles Cakes”. He left school before completing his sixth form studies to go to the Vietnam War as a freelance reporter for the Manchester Evening News. He studied Chinese and Japanese at Oxford University, later joining Reuters News Agency, which sent him to Brussels. On signing his first book contract (for “The Great Wall of China”) he resigned from Reuters and has been freelance ever since, working mainly for the BBC, Middle Eastern television stations and London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). A regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s “From Our Own Correspondent”, he has reported from or travelled in more than 160 countries round the globe. He has written a number of literary biographies and social histories, including a study of London’s Soho in its heyday. For many years he has been active in the Liberal Democrat Party (previously the Liberal Party), notably standing several times for election to the European Parliament.