Caitlin Thomas Seeks Return Of Manuscript

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31005, 10 March 1966, Page 2

Caitlin Thomas Seeks Return Of Manuscript

(N Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright)

LONDON, March 9.

The widow of the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, told a High Court Judge how the manuscript of her husband’s best-known work, “Under Milk Wood’’ was lost shortly before the poet went to the United States in 1953.

He died a few days later, and for eight years there was no trace of the manuscript. Mrs Caitlin Thomas, of Via Muzio Clementi, Rome, asked the Court to rule that she is entitled to claim the manuscript from her husband’s estate. She sued the Times Book Company, of London, and Mr Douglas Cleverdon, a 8.8. C. radio producer. Mr Charles Sparrow, counsel for Mrs Thomas, said the book was found in 1961 in the hands of the Times Book Company, which said it obtained it from Mr Cleverdon. “The manuscript was sold to the Times Book Company for £2OOO, of which Mr Cleverdon got about £1500,” said Mr Sparrow. Thomas died Intestate, leaving a widow and three children.

Thomas was to leave for America on Monday, October 19, 1953. The previous Saturday Mr Cleverdon returned the original manuscript, and during the week-end the poet lost it. Cleverdon wrote in a letter

to a literary agent that Thomas had said: “If I could find it (the script) I was welcome to keep it. As you know, 1 tracked it down in one of the Soho pubs that he named. So all my most rabid book-collecting hackles rise at the thought of parting with it.” Mr Sparrow said Mr Cleverdon entrusted the manuscript to a bookseller who sold it. “Knew Its Value” Mrs Thomas denied it was a gift to Mr Cleverdon. “This was a valuable manuscript, and Dylan Thomas, of all people, knew its value. Anything in his handwriting, anything he signed, he knew was worth money to him, and he used such things as money. “He discharged debts by this means. He sold manuscript material to booksellers and others,” said Mr Sparrow. Mrs Thomas told the Judge her husband had no doubt about the value of manuscripts. “He was a very clever, shrewd Welshman and a poet,” she said. The hearing was adjourned until today.