 First edition, 1940 | |
| Author | Dylan Thomas |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Short story collection |
| Published | 1940, Dent |
| Pages | 118 |
| ISBN | 046002258X (paperback) |
| Preceded by | The Map of Love (1939)' |
| Followed by | Deaths and Entrances (1946)' |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog is a collection of short prose stories written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, first published by Dent on 4 April 1940. [1] [2] The first paperback copy appeared in 1948, published by the British Publishers Guild. [3]
All of the stories are autobiographical and all are set in the writer's native Swansea in South Wales. Written over a number of years, the often comic stories show glimpses of his life, from early childhood up to his teens as a young reporter for the South Wales Daily Post .
Thomas claimed, in a letter to Vernon Watkins, that he had "kept the flippant title for—as the publishers advise—money-making reasons". He claimed also, somewhat dubiously, that the title was not a parody of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , although the general influence of Joyce's Dubliners was freely acknowledged. In August 1939 Thomas wrote to Watkins: "I've been busy over stories, pot-boiling stories for a book, semi-autobiographical, to be finished by Christmas." [4]
Reviews of the book were mixed and initially it did not sell well. Ferris, reviewing the book in The Times Literary Supplement said: "the atmosphere of schoolboy smut and practical jokes and poetry is evoked with lingering accuracy but with nothing more". Critic Jacob Korg later commented that "taken as a group, [the stories] seem to trace the child's emergence from his domain of imagination and secret pleasures into an adult world where he observes suffering, pathos, and dignity". [4]
The book has been described as showing Thomas's "waggish humor at its best, his exuberance & verbal magic in spectacular display". [5] Apart from Under Milk Wood , the book is "probably the most famous Dylan Thomas book published during his lifetime... certainly the most loved by Dylan enthusiasts". [3] It has been suggested that few writers "have evoked as successfully the mysteries and adventures of boyhood, of young love with its shattered dreams... none has done it in as fresh and telling phrases, with an elation as natural and contagious". [6]
The title was used for a theatrical journey through Thomas' prose writings which was staged by Clwyd Theatr Cymru in April 2014. [7]
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood. He also wrote stories and radio broadcasts such as A Child's Christmas in Wales and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. He became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then, he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet".
Welsh writing in English, is a term used to describe works written in the English language by Welsh writers.
Daniel Jenkyn Jones was a Welsh composer of classical music, who worked in Britain. He used both serial and tonal techniques. He is best known for his quartets and thirteen symphonies and for his song settings for Dylan Thomas's play, Under Milk Wood.
Vernon Phillips Watkins was a Welsh poet and translator. He was a close friend of fellow poet Dylan Thomas, who described him as "the most profound and greatly accomplished Welshman writing poems in English".
Owen Sheers is a Welsh poet, author, playwright and television presenter. He was the first writer in residence to be appointed by any national rugby union team.
Helen Raynor is a Welsh television screenwriter and script editor from Swansea. She is best known for her work on the relaunched BBC science fiction series Doctor Who. She previously worked as a theatre director. Besides television episodes, Raynor has written theatrical plays, radio plays, and short stories.
Alfred George Janes was a Welsh artist, who worked in Swansea and Croydon. He experimented with many forms, but is best known for his meticulous still lifes and portraits.
John Ormond, also known as John Ormond Thomas, was a Welsh poet and film-maker.
Terence David Hands was an English theatre director. He founded the Liverpool Everyman Theatre and ran the Royal Shakespeare Company for thirteen years during one of the company's most successful periods; he spent 25 years in all with the RSC. He also saved Clwyd Theatr Cymru from closure and turned it into the most successful theatre in Wales in his seventeen years as Artistic Director. He received several Olivier, Tony and Molière awards and nominations for directing and lighting.
The Dylan Thomas Prize is a leading prize for young writers presented annually. The prize, named in honour of the Welsh writer and poet Dylan Thomas, brings international prestige and a remuneration of £30,000 (~$46,000). It is open to published writers in the English language under the age of forty. The prize was originally awarded biennially, but became an annual award in 2010. Entries for the prize are submitted by the publisher, editor, or agent; for theatre plays and screenplays, by the producer.
Dic Edwards is a British playwright, poet and teacher of creative writing. His writing often touches upon political and social issues, nationalism and democracy.
Dylan Marlais Thomas (1914–1953) was a Welsh poet and writer who — along with his work — has been remembered and referred to by a number of artists in various media.
Llŷr Ifans is a Welsh actor.
Nigel Jenkins was an Anglo-Welsh poet. He was an editor, journalist, psychogeographer, broadcaster and writer of creative non-fiction, as well as being a lecturer at Swansea University and director of the creative writing programme there.
John Jordan (1930–1988) was an Irish poet and short-story writer.
Giacomo Joyce is a posthumously-published work by Irish writer James Joyce. It was published by Faber and Faber from sixteen handwritten pages by Joyce. The text is a free-form love poem that tracks the waxing and waning of Joyce's infatuation with one of his students in Trieste.
Daniel Owain Lloyd is a bilingual Welsh actor and singer-songwriter. He is the frontman for the Welsh language band Daniel Lloyd a Mr Pinc, who reformed in 2017 after a 6-year break, as well as a solo artist and established actor.
Colin Edwards (1924–1994) was a radio journalist and documentary film maker. He was also an actor, author, university lecturer, Plaid Cymru activist and founder of the American CADW. An expert on middle eastern affairs, and advisor to the United Nations and policy think-tanks, he was also interested in the arts, anthropology and science: his broadcasts included comment on the Irish theatre, European witchcraft, Congo tribal customs, chemical pesticides, the Abominable Snowman and Vernon Watkins.
A Child's Christmas in Wales is a piece of prose by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas recorded by Thomas in 1952. Emerging from an earlier piece he wrote for BBC Radio, the work is an anecdotal reminiscence of a Christmas from the viewpoint of a young boy, portraying a nostalgic and simpler time. It is one of Thomas's most popular works.