Editing Dylan Thomas (section)

====Second tour January 20 to May 16, 1952====
Thomas undertook a second tour of the United States in 1952, this time with Caitlin – after she had discovered he had been unfaithful on his earlier trip.{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|pp=286–287, 296}} They drank heavily, and Thomas began to suffer with [[gout]] and [[Respiratory distress|lung problems]]. The second tour was the most intensive of the four, taking in 46 engagements.{{sfnp|FitzGibbon|1965|pp=403–410}} The trip also resulted in Thomas recording his first poetry to vinyl, which [[Caedmon Audio|Caedmon Records]] released in America later that year.{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|p=301}} One of his works recorded during this time, ''[[A Child's Christmas in Wales]]'', became his most popular prose work in America.{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|p=214}} The original 1952 recording of the book was a 2008 selection for the [[United States National Recording Registry]], stating that it is "credited with launching the [[audiobook]] industry in the United States".<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/registry/nrpb-2008reg.html |title= The National Recording Registry 2008 | access-date= 16 July 2012 | work= National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress | publisher= The Library of Congress}}</ref>

A shortened version of the first half of ''The Town That Was Mad'' was published in ''[[Botteghe Oscure]]'' in May 1952, with the title ''Llareggub. A Piece for Radio Perhaps''. Thomas had been in Laugharne for almost three years, but his half-play had made little progress since his time living in South Leigh. By the summer of 1952, the half-play's title had been changed to ''Under Milk Wood'' because John Brinnin thought the title ''Llareggub'' would not attract American audiences.{{sfnp|Brinnin|1955|p=187}} On 6 November 1952, Thomas wrote to the editor of ''Botteghe Oscure'' to explain why he hadn't been able to "finish the second half of my piece for you." He had failed shamefully, he said, to add to "my lonely half of a looney maybe-play".{{sfnp|Ferris|1985|p={{page needed|date=June 2024}}}}

On 10 November 1952 Thomas's last collection ''Collected Poems, 1934–1952'', was published by Dent; he was 38. It won the [[William Foyle|Foyle]] poetry prize.<ref>{{cite book|title= New Companion to the Literature of Wales|first1= Meic|last1= Stephens|year= 1998|page=711|isbn= 978-0-7083-1383-1|publisher= University of Wales Press|url-access= registration|url= https://archive.org/details/newcompaniontoli0000unse}}</ref> Reviewing the volume, critic [[Philip Toynbee]] declared that "Thomas is the greatest living poet in the English language".{{sfnp|Bold|1976|p=61}} The winter of 1952/3 brought much personal tragedy: Thomas's father died from pneumonia just before Christmas 1952; and in the Spring of 1953 his sister died from liver cancer, one of his patrons overdosed, three friends died at young ages and Caitlin had an abortion.{{sfnp|Thomas|2008|p=29}}