Under Milk Wood
A Play for Voices
Published on 11. December 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
144 pages
978-0-241-63600-8 (ISBN)
Description
'A tour de force of oral poetry' Guardian
'I could get drunk just on the sound of the words' Sylvia Plath
A definitive new edition of Dylan Thomas's beloved radio play
It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent...
In the Welsh seaside town of Llareggub, night is moving in the streets. Its inhabitants are lost in the land of dreams: old Captain Cat catches up with his drowned shipmates, Mog Edwards the draper is consumed by mad love for Miss Price the dressmaker, and Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard whips the ghosts of her two late husbands into shape. As the sun rises, the 'dismays and rainbows' of each character are played out within the cycle of one day, intertwining voices and lives, dreams and reality. By turns tender, hilarious and beautifully lyrical, Dylan Thomas's 'play for voices' is his most beloved work and a landmark of Welsh literature.
'I could get drunk just on the sound of the words' Sylvia Plath
A definitive new edition of Dylan Thomas's beloved radio play
It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent...
In the Welsh seaside town of Llareggub, night is moving in the streets. Its inhabitants are lost in the land of dreams: old Captain Cat catches up with his drowned shipmates, Mog Edwards the draper is consumed by mad love for Miss Price the dressmaker, and Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard whips the ghosts of her two late husbands into shape. As the sun rises, the 'dismays and rainbows' of each character are played out within the cycle of one day, intertwining voices and lives, dreams and reality. By turns tender, hilarious and beautifully lyrical, Dylan Thomas's 'play for voices' is his most beloved work and a landmark of Welsh literature.
Reviews / Votes
A tour de force of oral poetry which oozes word pictures and onomatopoeic musicality * Guardian * Dylan Thomas disturbed the roots of our language in an organic way and gave it a new vitality * The Times * Roguish, prancing, with blazing characters and lines. The words dizzied me, their grandeur, their wit * New Yorker * A dazzling combination of poetic fireworks and music-hall humor * New York Times * Brilliant - time hasn't dimmed it, his language remains bracingly wild, elemental and weird * Time Out * I could get drunk just on the sound of the words ... or on the boisterous Welshness of his humour -- Sylvia Plath Dylan Thomas...was the most musical of poets. His work is so full of rhythm and melody that one of life's great pleasures is to read him aloud, feeling those syllables roll around your mouth while the rhythms find their ebb and flow -- Cerys MatthewsMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
114 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-63600-8 (9780241636008)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
12/2025
Penguin
€9.49
Available for download
Persons
Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 in Swansea, where he worked as a reporter on the local newspaper. He published his first volume of poetry, 18 Poems, when he was just twenty years old. Thereafter, bohemian literary life in London alternated with some more positively creative periods back in Wales. He had a celebrated career as a writer for radio and film, and he continued to publish poetry and short stories. From 1950 onwards, Thomas' attention was given mainly to completing his most famous work, Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices. The poet died in New York in 1953 and is buried at Laugharne.