Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)Provenance: Sotheby's, 29 June 1982, lot 408.Discussing in detail the poems and poets to be included in the Society of Authors’ recital, alongside his preferences regarding his own participation. Opening with an apology, ‘I shan’t be able to attend the final meeting of the C’te on the 10th I’m afraid, so may I make my very few comments now?’, Thomas makes a number of suggestions, including that John Milton ‘should have more time’ and that ‘it is a pity to lose Vaughan’s “Retreat”, let’s overrun by 2 minutes rather than lose a great poem’. Thomas agrees that Cecil Day Lewis should read “To His Coy Mistress” and that he does not mind reading “Tyger Tyger”, ‘but I should like to see Lawrence represented’. The poet agrees, with regret, that there would not be enough time for 'Kubla Khan, ‘however much we’d all love to include it’. On the 20th-century poetry intended for the second half of the programme, Thomas insists that ‘a longer poem than [Wilfred Owen's] “Anthem for Doomed Youth” – longer & better should be chosen to introduce this half. I sincerely suggest Owen’s “Exposure’’... what a mistake to leave out Robert Graves', suggesting 'one of Graves’ "grotesques"; his choice of Thomas Hardy poems would be '''In Death Departed ” and either “After a Journey”, “Rain On Her Grave”, or “Lizbie Browne”’. Of his own verse, 'I should like to read one poem, "Fern Hill"'. Times stated that ‘Mr. C. Day-Lewis, Mr. Louis MacNeice and Mr. Thomas came off much better in reading their own work than Mr. Walter de la Mare, Mr. T. S. Eliot and Miss Edith Sitwell’. Later that year, Thomas was awarded £150 from the Society’s Travelling Scholarship fund which allowed him to go abroad for the first time.