This concise biography of Dylan Thomas incorporates the most recent research, challenging the legend of the dissolute bard to reveal a diligent, professional writer, author of some of the century's greatest lyric poetry as well as short stories, film-scripts, letters and what is commonly agreed to be the greatest radio feature ever broadcast, Under Milk Wood. Thomas is viewed primarily through the lens of his writing, and his hybrid Anglo-Welsh origins are shown to be the source of his daring stylistic inventiveness. His work is set in its historical, cultural and social contexts - Depression-era Wales and 1930s literary London, Surrealism, the rise of fascism, the Second World War and the Blitz, and the Cold War - charting the path towards his final works, which offer a unique fusion of high art and popular culture.