Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) was a Welsh writer who is best known for his poetry, though he also wrote short stories and scripts for radio broadcast. Thomas began writing poems in his final years of school, and he continued to write poems during his early career as a freelance journalist. By 1933 he had amassed nearly two hundred poems in his notebooks. This cache furnished the majority of the poems that Thomas published in his first two collections, humbly titled Eighteen Poems (1934) and Twenty-five Poems (1936). Both collections received favorable reviews, and the second volume even proved a commercial success. Although he continued to publish his writing, it wasn’t until after the Second World War that Thomas returned to the critical spotlight. His landmark 1946 collection, Deaths and Entrances, sold extremely well and earned him widespread popularity in the United Kingdom and beyond. In his final years he traveled frequently to the United States, where he went on infamously licentious tours to promote his work. He died in New York in 1953 from complications related to alcohol and drug abuse. Despite the tumultuous final years of his life, today Thomas is best remembered for his lyrical, image-rich poems that delight in the sound and sensuality of language.