Jointly funded by the Ransom Center and Swansea University in Wales with the support of the Dylan Thomas Trust, accessibility to the author’s archive will expand to include this freely available digital collection, opening the study of his literary works and creative process to a global audience.
“This initiative promises to deepen our understanding of Dylan Thomas’ creative process and lead to new insights into his poetry and other writings,” said Stephen Enniss, the Betty Brumbalow Director of the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin. “We are grateful for this collaboration with Swansea University and grateful, too, to the Dylan Thomas Trust, which has made it possible for us to share the collection with his readers everywhere.”
Collections related to Dylan Thomas are held by multiple institutions internationally, and the Ransom Center holds the world’s largest collection, which includes manuscripts, letters, notebooks, drawings and photographs that trace the origins of his major works and the evolution of a young writer. The collection also features screenplays, radio broadcasts and radio plays. Most were acquired by the Center between 1960 and 2004.
More than 6,000 items are now digitized, representing only a portion of the author’s physical archive. Everything in Thomas’ hand, from letters and manuscripts to sketches and works of art, is available online.
Source: Swansea University
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Manuscripts for many of his best-known works are present in the digital collection, including “Under Milk Wood,” “Poem on His Birthday,” “In the White Giant’s Thigh,” “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” and “Elegy,” the unfinished poem he was writing during the last year of his life.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
