"I'll be very pleased indeed to read a ... selection of my poems"
Autograph Letter Signed ("Dylan Thomas"), to producer Frank Hauser at the British Broadcasting Corporation, agreeing to read his poems on a radio program.
The Boat House, Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, [Wales]: 29 August 1949.
Price: $4,000.00
About the item
1 p., docketed with date "31 Aug 1949" as receipt on verso by BBC. 8vo. "I'll be very pleased indeed to read a ... selection of my poems" Old folds.
Item #308313
Thomas accepts an invitation to appear on BBC Radio. In part: "… I'll be very pleased indeed to read a 20 minute selection of my poems on the Third Programme sometime at the end of September — with just the minimum amount of linking material. Are any links, other than the titles of the poems, really necessary? Would I be expected to announce the titles of the poems myself? If so, then perhaps a few introductory words would be needed as well …."
The program was broadcast on September 24, 1949, with Thomas reading, among his own poems, "There Was a Saviour," "If my Head Hurt a Hair’s Foot," "Poem in October," "After the Funeral," "A Refusal to Mourn" and "In My Craft or Sullen Art." He also delivered a piece called "On Reading One's Own Poems." The recording was released as side B of the 1963 Caedmon LP "An Evening with Dylan Thomas." From 1943-1953 Thomas participated in over 150 BBC radio broadcasts, and his popularity owed much to his rich voice and dramatic reading style.
