A lost notebook containing drafts of some of Dylan Thomas’s most challenging poems is heading to Wales after Swansea university successfully bid £85,000 for it at auction in London.
Sotheby’s auction house in London put up for sale the recently discovered notebook holding the lost drafts of some of the key works of the Welsh poet.
The book was apparently given to a servant after Thomas left it behind in the 1930s at the house of his mother-in-law, who did not get along with him and ordered it burned. The servant saved it instead, and the book is now expected to fetch 150,000 pounds. A letter, bounced cheque and other documents which were also found shed more light on what Thomas was thinking, the state of his marriage and the torment of his drinking. See a more complete story on The Daily Mail online.
That’s a piece of history I would very much like to own, but it should really be in the Dylan Thomas Boathouse at Laugharne with his other letters!