Books: Passionate Pilgrim

THE SELECTED WRITINGS OF DYLAN THOMAS (184 pp.)—New Directions ($3.50).

Britain's Dylan Thomas, who is only 32, is the first, and happy choice, for a new series which New Directions says will feature "important modern writers whose books are not easily obtainable."* Dylan Thomas is Britain's most spectacular and distinguished younger poet, but barely half of his prose and verse (The Map of Love, New Poems, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog) has been printed in the U.S. One possible reason: most of Thomas' brilliant, tempestuous work is so shrouded in uncommon...