Editing Dylan Thomas (section)

===Wartime 1939–1945===
In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as ''The Map of Love''.{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|p=177}} Ten stories in his next book, ''[[Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog]]'' (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in ''The Map of Love'' and more on real-life romances featuring himself in Wales.<ref Name="Ferris-2004"/> Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances.{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|pp=178–180}} Hounded by creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to the home of critic [[John Davenport (critic)|John Davenport]] in Marshfield near [[Chippenham]] in [[Gloucestershire]].{{refn|Davenport was, for many years, literary editor of ''[[The Observer]]'' newspaper. "From July to November 1940 Dylan Thomas and his family stayed at 'The Malting House' 78 High Street, Marshfield, near Chippenham in Gloucestershire, with the critic John Davenport and his American painter wife, Clement, who kept an open house for musicians and writers. The composers Lennox Berkeley and Arnold Cooke, the music critic William Glock and writer Antonia White, joined them."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thewordtravels.com/dylan-thomas-in-marshfield.html|title=Dylan Thomas in Marshfield|publisher=thewordtravels.com|access-date=10 August 2012|archive-date=21 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120321132706/http://www.thewordtravels.com/dylan-thomas-in-marshfield.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>|group="nb"}} There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire ''The Death of the King's Canary'',{{sfnp|Read|1964|p=102}} though due to fears of libel the work was not published until 1976.{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|p=345}}

At the outset of the [[Second World War]], worried about [[conscription]], Thomas unsuccessfully sought employment in a [[reserved occupation]] with the [[Ministry of Information (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Information]]. However, an “unreliable lung”, as he described his chronic condition – coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus – proved to be the grounds for the military authorities to allocate him a C3 category medical exemption which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service.<ref>{{cite book | last =Davies|first =Walford|author-link =|date = 2014| title = Dylan Thomas|series = Writers of Wales| location = Cardiff| publisher = University of Wales Press |page=95}}</ref>  He would subsequently be recognised as engaged in essential war work through his role in broadcasting for the BBC and documentary [[#Making films, 1941-1948|film making]], work he took up in 1941 after he and Caitlin moved to London, leaving their son with Caitlin’s mother at [[Blashford]].{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|p=187}} Thomas produced film scripts for the Strand Film Company, work which provided him with a much needed financial mainstay throughout the war years and his first regular source of income since working for the ''South Wales Daily Post''.{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|p=188}}

In February 1941, [[Swansea Blitz|Swansea was bombed]] by the [[Luftwaffe]] in a "three nights' blitz". Castle Street was one of many streets that suffered badly; rows of shops, including the Kardomah Café, were destroyed. Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded: "Our Swansea is dead".{{sfnmp|1a1=Davies|1y=2000|1p=19|2a1=Thomas|2y=2004|2p=[https://archive.org/details/dylanremembered0001unse/page/92 92]}} Thomas later wrote a feature programme for the radio, ''Return Journey'', which described the café as being "razed to the snow".<ref>"Thomas, Dylan." ''Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of World Literature''. Gale. 2009.</ref> The programme, produced by [[Philip Burton (theatre director)|Philip Burton]], was first broadcast on 15 June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/arts/sites/doctor-who-wales/alllocations/swansea-kardomah-cafe |title=Kardomah Cafe, Swansea| work=BBC Wales |date=13 April 2009|access-date=26 July 2012}}</ref>

In early 1943, Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower, one of several affairs he had during his marriage.<ref name="Ferris-2003">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/aug/17/poetry.highereducation|title=I was Dylan's secret lover|first1=Paul|last1=Ferris|date=17 August 2003|access-date=1 August 2012|publisher=guardian.co.uk|work=The Observer}}</ref> The affairs either ran out of steam or were halted after Caitlin discovered his infidelity.<ref name="Ferris-2003"/> In March 1943, Caitlin gave birth to a daughter, [[Aeronwy Thomas|Aeronwy]], in London.<ref name="Ferris-2003"/> They lived in a run-down studio in Chelsea, made up of a single large room with a curtain to separate the kitchen.{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|p=194}}

====Escaping to Wales====
The Thomas family also made several escapes back to Wales. Between 1941 and 1943, they lived intermittently in Plas Gelli, [[Talsarn]], in Cardiganshire.{{sfnp|Thomas|2000|pp=27–77}} Plas Gelli sits close by the [[River Aeron]], after whom Aeronwy is thought to have been named.<ref>See the interview with Amanda Williams who lived in Plas Gelli while the Thomases were there in {{harvp|Thomas|2000|pp=232–238}}.</ref> Some of Thomas's letters from Gelli can be found in his ''Collected Letters''{{sfnp|Ferris|1985|pp=559–561, 563–565}} whilst an extended account of Thomas's time there can be found in D. N. Thomas's book, ''Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow'' (2000).{{sfnp|Thomas|2000}} The Thomases shared the mansion with his childhood friends from Swansea, Vera and Evelyn Phillips. Vera's friendship with the Thomases in nearby [[New Quay]] is portrayed in the 2008 film ''The Edge of Love''.{{sfnp|Thomas|n.d.}}

In July 1944, with the threat in London of [[V-1 flying bomb|German flying bombs]], Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaencwm near [[Llangain]], Carmarthenshire,{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|p=200}} where he resumed writing poetry, completing "Holy Spring" and "Vision and Prayer".{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|p=201}}

In September that year, the Thomas family moved to [[New Quay]] in Cardiganshire (Ceredigion), where they rented Majoda, a wood and asbestos bungalow on the cliffs overlooking Cardigan Bay.<ref group="nb">See Thomas's letters from Majoda, September 1, 1944 to July 5, 1945 in {{harvp|Ferris|1985}}.</ref> It was there that Thomas wrote a radio piece about New Quay, ''Quite Early One Morning'', a sketch for his later work, ''Under Milk Wood''.<ref>{{harvp|Ferris|1989|p=213}}. To read ''Quite Early...'' see {{harvp|Maud|1991|p=9}}.</ref> Of the poetry written at this time, of note is ''Fern Hill'', started while living in New Quay, continued at Blaencwm in July and August 1945 and first published in October 1945<ref>Started writing Fern Hill in New Quay: see {{harvp|FitzGibbon|1965|p=266}}; {{harvp|Thomas|Tremlett|1986|p=92}}; {{harvp|Ferris|1989|p=4}}. Further work was done on ''Fern Hill'' in July and August 1945 at Blaencwm, the family cottage in Carmarthenshire, Wales. A draft of the poem was sent to David Tennant on August 28, 1945: see {{harvp|Ferris|1985|p=629}}. ''Fern Hill'' received its first publication in ''Horizon'' magazine in October 1945.</ref><ref group="nb">{{harvp|Brinnin|1955|p=104}} states that on a visit to Laugharne in 1951 he was shown "more than two hundred separate and distinct versions of the poem (''Fern Hill'')" by Thomas.</ref>

Thomas's nine months in New Quay, said first biographer, Constantine FitzGibbon, were "a second flowering, a period of fertility that recalls the earliest days…[with a] great outpouring of poems", as well as a good deal of other material.{{sfnp|FitzGibbon|1965|p=266}} His second biographer, [[Paul Ferris (Welsh writer)|Paul Ferris]], agreed: "On the grounds of output, the bungalow deserves a plaque of its own."{{sfnp|Ferris|1989|p=4}} Thomas's third biographer, [[George Tremlett]], concurred, describing the time in New Quay as "one of the most creative periods of Thomas's life."{{sfnp|Tremlett|1991|p=95}} Walford Davies, who co-edited the 1995 definitive edition of the play, has noted that New Quay "was crucial in supplementing the gallery of characters Thomas had to hand for writing ''Under Milk Wood''."{{sfnp|Davies|Maud|1995|p=xvii}}

====War poetry====
Thomas’s horror of war, foreshadowed in some of his poems of the 1930s<ref>{{cite book | last =Davies|first =Walford|author-link =|date = 2014| title = Dylan Thomas|series = Writers of Wales| location = Cardiff| publisher = University of Wales Press |pages= 106–7}}</ref> and fuelled by his lived experience of the bombing raids and fire storms of [[the Blitz]] in London, received further expression in his poems of the war period.  These include elegies for an elderly man – ''Among Those Killed in a Dawn Raid Was a Man Aged a Hundred'' (1941) – and for child victims of incendiary bombing raids in ''Ceremony After a Fire Raid'' (1944) and ''A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London'' (1945). They were collected in ''[[Deaths and Entrances]]'', the fourth volume of his poetry, published in 1946. The sentiments expressed in his war poems were, according to Walford Davies, representative of “the real temper of the British people of the time – the resilience and the guts”.<ref>{{cite book | last =Davies|first =Walford|author-link =|date = 2014| title = Dylan Thomas|series = Writers of Wales| location = Cardiff| publisher = University of Wales Press |page= 113 }}</ref>