Search Results: Books by dylan thomas

London.: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1953.. Original publisher's blue cloth, titles gilt to spine, supplied dust-jacket (see below) with elaborate signed painting in ink and watercolour over covers and flaps by Ceri Richards with his manuscript title and text in black ink: Homage to Dylan Thomas / Ceri Richards 1953 November', top edge stained red.. 8vo. (220 x 146 mm).. Presentation from Ceri Richards to front free endpaper (see below), half-title with illumination in black and blue inks, portrait frontispiece on glossy paper with painting by Augustus John and with Richards' manuscript note 'Died November 9 1953 / New York.' in blue ink, title with elaborate drawing by Richards in black and blue inks and copyright verso, leaf with Thomas' dedication 'To Caitlin' and elaborate drawing in black ink of Thomas' wife Caitlin, 'Note' with drawn frame verso, two leaves with Thomas' 'Foreword' with elaborate illumination, two leaves with list of contents with those poems illuminated by Richards with asterisks… Read More

This is a fine collection of items closely linked to Dylan Thomas's 'A Child's Christmas in Wales'. Present is a typed letter, hand signed by Gaston Charpentier. The letter is addressed to Alec Snowden, the British film producer and son of Agnes Adamson Wallace née Crawford and the novelist J. Keighley Snowden; it is also addressed to his wife Renee. The typed section reads of literary matters and scandal, some of which is rather unflattering towards Thomas. The letter also mentions Augustus John, the Welsh painter and etcher. The final typed paragraph averts to more familial matters, speaking of grandchildren and ending with "I will leave Elizabeth to add a few words", who then hand writes her contributions below. The subject of Elizabeth's writing is primarily familial and signed "Love to you both. E." in blue ink. The letter is on a single sheet of white watermarked paper. Present are two typescripts of 'Memories of Christmas', said to have… Read More

(No place: James Laughlin & J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1949). First edition. One of only 10 copies printed on Japan vellum, out of a total edition of 150 copies printed by Hans Mardersteig at the Officina Bodoni in Verona and signed by Thomas, The bibliographer also notes that evidence suggests that "the vellum copies preceded the hand-made paper issue by about two days." Rolph B13. Twenty-Six Poems contains a selection of Thomas' best poems, including "I see the boys of summer", "After the funeral", "The hand the signed the paper", "There was a saviour", "Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait", "Deaths and Entrances", "Fern Hill", "A Refusal to Mourn", "In my craft and sullen art", and "In Country Sleep", among others. A very fine copy of this extremely rare issue of Thomas' most beautiful book, in the original slipcase which is somewhat damaged (but repairable), and missing the top panel. 4to, original cloth-backed paste-paper boards, publisher's slipcase. A very fine copy of this extremely rare issue of… Read More

London: Sunday Referee and the Parton Press, 1936. First edition, first issue of Thomas' first book, one of 250 copies. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author to Desmond Hawkins, who was Dylan's literary editor and close friend, with a playful (and perhaps drunken) inscription which attempts to conflate their names, maybe in an effort to create a new single persona out of the two of them: "To and from Hawkins Dylan Desmond Thomas Dylan Desmond Dylan Desmond Hawkins Thomas Dylan Desmond." He has also included a more conventional inscription, signed "Dylan Thomas 24th May 1936." Near fine in a very good dust jacket with some small chips to the extremities. Housed in a custom clamshell box. Rare and desirable signed and inscribed.

Paris: Transition / Shakespeare and Company, 1938. First edition. Very good to near fine overall.. Complete run of Eugene and Maria Jolas's landmark literary journal, which - along with Margaret Anderson's THE LITTLE REVIEW - was one of the primary vehicles of Modernist and experimental writing. Over the course of 11 years, often times under great financial difficulty, they published a who's-who of modernist and experimental authors, alongside the work of Surrealist, Expressionist, and Dada artists: "TRANSITION would explore the literary currents washing over Europe and America, present them all if they showed 'imaginative emancipation' as against descriptive naturalism" (Hoffman).  Beginning with the very first issue, they published several portions of James Joyce's Work in Progress (Finnegans Wake), and notably, Jolas's English translation of Kafka's METAMORPHOSIS, which appeared in issues 24-26. Contributors across other issues include Kay Boyle, Samuel Beckett, Ernest Hemingway, Hilda… Read More

New York: New Directions, 1952. First edition of this collection of poems, including the first book appearance of "Do not go gentle into that good night." Octavo, original cloth. Signed and dated by the author in the year of publication on the front free endpaper, "Dylan Thomas 1952." Fine in a very good dust jacket. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. Rare and desirable signed as Thomas passed away one year after the publication.

Norfolk, CT: New Directions,, 1940. Inscribed to a fellow poet and White Horse Tavern regular First US edition, first printing, rare presentation copy, inscribed by the author to his friend and fellow poet on the front free endpaper, "from Dylan Thomas to Jose Garcia Villa". This is a superb association: the two poets moved in the same circle, and Thomas remained an abiding influence on Villa's poetry. José García Villa was born in Manila in 1908. In 1929, he published a series of erotic poems called "Man-Songs" in the Philippines Herald Magazine and was fined for obscenity and suspended for a year from law school. That same year, his short story "Mir-i-nisa" won a prize of 1,000 pesetas, which he used to travel to the United States. He published a collection of stories, Footnote to Youth: Tales of the Philippines and Others, with Scribner in 1933. He then moved to the Greenwich Village, where he was the only Asian poet in the modernist community that included e.e. cummings, Marianne Moore, W. H.… Read More

New York: New Directions, 1952.

1939. First Edition . Signed. THOMAS, Dylan. The Map of Love. Verse and Prose. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, (1939). Octavo, original purple cloth, original dust jacket; housed in a custom slipcase. $8800.First edition in book form, twice inscribed by Thomas, once beneath the frontispiece portrait by Augustus John: “As I was, or might have been, to Norman Unger from [line pointing at name beneath portrait],” and a second time on the front free endpaper: “ Norman Unger. Dylan Thomas 1950.”Among the works included in this collection of poems and lyrical prose, which had all appeared in periodicals and which here make up Thomas's third book, are ""When all my Five and Country Senses see,"" ""After the Funeral,"" ""Not from this Anger,"" and ""The Mouse and the Woman."" First issue, in fine-grained purple cloth with ""Dent"" blind-stamped on spine. Maud, 5. Norman Unger, the… Read More

Mount Vernon, N.Y: Peter Pauper Press, 1942. First edition, signed limited issue of the second in a series of wartime poetry anthologies selected by Oscar Williams, this being the first to be issued as a signed limited edition. Octavo, original three quarter buckram over marbled boards, top edge gilt. One of 26 lettered copies available for sale and signed by 31 of the 32 contributors (W. R. Rogers is absent as is the case with all copies), this is copy V (of 58 as 32 copies were reserved for the contributors). Signed by Conrad Aiken, Kenneth Allott, W. H. Auden, George Barker, John Peale Bishop, R. P. Blackmur, Hugh Chisholm, Gene Derwood, Richard Eberhart, William Empson, Jean Garrigue, Horace Gregory, Alfred Hayes, Ruth Herschberger, Randall Jarrell, Robinson Jeffers, C. Day Lewis, Archibald Macleish, Louis Macneice, Marianne Moore, Howard Nemerov, Frederic Prokosch, Muriel Rukeyser, Delmore Schwartz, Winfield Townley Scott, Karl Shapiro, Theodore Spencer, Stephen Spender, Wallace Stevens, Dylan… Read More

Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1940. First American Edition. Very Good/Very Good. First American edition, first printing. Signed and inscribed by Dylan Thomas during his 1950 tour of the United States, "With best wishes to...Lilian [sic] and Harry Dick Ross from...and with love of their house, hills, and sea, April 1950." The recipients were Lillian Bos Ross, who was known to her friends as Shanagolden, and Harry Dick Ross, who were fixtures in the Big Sur art community; Lillian wrote a trilogy of novels about a family in Big Sur. Bound in publisher's original red cloth with spine lettered in gilt. Very Good with lean to spine, light rubbing to cloth at corners and spine ends, shallow sunning to spine ends and stain to textblock edge slightly protruding into margins; pages toned and endsheets browned. In a Very Good unclipped dust jacket with a creased snag at the foot of the spine, toning to spine and light soiling. A collection of short prose pieces written by the Welsh poet.

[New York]:: New Directions,, [1952].. First edition; No. 68 of 100 copies signed by Dylan Thomas.. publisher's cloth in slipcase with printed paper label.. A fine copy in a bright, fresh slipcase which is missing a 3/4" section of the top, and is partially cracked at one bottom joint. . 8vo,.

A VERY GOOD FIRST EDITION SECOND PRINTING IN DUST JACKET.SIGNED WITH LINE OF POETRY BY DYLAN THOMAS AND DRAWING OF THE DOG. WITH HANDWRITTEN THE DAY THE POET CAMESIGNED BY D. THOMAS LISTS THE DRINKS AT A BAR

NEW DIRECTIONS, 1963. Book. Near Fine. Hardcover. First Edition. A VERY GOOD FIRST EDITION SECOND PRINTING IN DUST JACKET. SIGNED WITH LINE OF POETRY BY DYLAN THOMAS AND DRAWING OF THE DOG. WITH HANDWRITTEN THE DAY THE POET CAME SIGNED BY D. THOMAS LISTS THE DRINKS AT A BAR.

London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd, 1939. Among the 16 poems and 7 short stories included in this collection, which were initially published in periodicals between 1934 and 1939, are When all my Five and Country Senses see, After the Funeral, Not from this Anger, and The Mouse and the Woman

First edition, first impression, signed by the author to the title page. One of 500 copies; the present example belonging to the second 250 copies with a round spine, as opposed to the flat spine used for the first 250. Likely signed for Norman Ungar, a collector based in New York and a friend and sometime patron of Thomas.
Original black cloth. Spine lettering a little dulled with a touch of rubbing to hinges and corners. One or two isolated spots to a few of the opening pages and to rear endpaper. Lacking dust jacket.
An excellent, clean example of the author's first book. Extremely scarce, even more so signed.

Typed Letter Signed (in the form of contract proposal) from Victor Weybright at The New American Library of World Literature, Inc. 501 Madison Avenue, New York 22, New York, Murray Hill 8-3470, May 9, 1952. Addressed to Dylan Thomas c/o Mr. Oscar Williams 25 Water Street, New York 4, New York. Very good.
Signed by Thomas at end, and initialed twice by him noting hand corrections.
Contract for the purchase of the first part of Dylan Thomas' "Adventures In The Skin Trade."
Thomas was in New York on his American lecture tour, having arrived on January 20th lecturing at Harvard, U.C. Berkeley, et.al.; leaving the U.S. on May 16th.
Oscar Williams (born Kaplan, 1900-1964) was a poet, anthologist, friend and promoter of Dylan Thomas. He occupied a penthouse at 35 Water Street and Thomas most likely stayed there when in New York.
Dylan Thomas contracts are uncommon on the market today.
See Dylan Thomas "The Collected Letters" (2000 ed) pages 958-959 for a footnote detailing this contract, and a related letter… Read More

New York: New Directions, 1946. First edition, second issue with redesigned title page and later New Directions address, "333 Sixth Ave." on copyright page. Frontispiece portrait of Thomas by Augustus John opposite p. ix. xxiii, 183 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Red cloth, gilt titles blocked in black on spine. Near fine in very good original unclipped dust jacket (spine sunned, small loss at head). First edition, second issue with redesigned title page and later New Directions address, "333 Sixth Ave." on copyright page. Frontispiece portrait of Thomas by Augustus John opposite p. ix. xxiii, 183 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. With a Note from Dylan Thomas. A.N.s. of Dylan Thomas, a presentation to Carol Louise Zeman dated September 1st, 1950, laid in. The note is on stationery of the Ritz Hotel, where Marguerite and Louis Cohn usually stayed when they were in London. They were proprietors of House of Books, early specialist dealers in modern literature and publishers of a series of signed books. Their acquaintances included… Read More

Norfolk CT: New Directions, 1943. 1st edition, original printed purple paperwraps (as issued). Specially inscribed and signed by Dylan Thomas on the half title page. The inscription reads: "for Elmer Borklund / from / Dylan Thomas. / Chicago 1950," in black fountain pen ink. Elmer Borklund was a Chicago based academic, literary critic, and author. Published by James Laughlin in The Poets of the Year series. Only minimal wear to this otherwise fine copy. Very scarce signed.

London: J.M. Dent, 1956. Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good. Eighth impression. Slightly cocked, else near fine in very good dustwrapper. Originally commissioned as a BBC radio play. This copy Inscribed by Harold Pinter (using his stage name, David Baron) to his first wife, the actress Vivien Merchant, apparently near the two month anniversary of their marriage: "To Vivien, Nov. 56. Almost two months! David." Merchant went on to play the part of Mrs. Pugh in the 1972 film version of the play directed by Andrew Sinclair, along with a cast that also featured Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter O'Toole, Glynis Johns, and Siân Phillips.