Choice Review

Mayer (Univ. of Western Ontario) maintains that the relatively neglected short stories and other fictions of the Welsh poet deserve exploration because they form a necessary and equal part of his total creative effort. Here, the author maintains that "Thomas's lifelong concern with the primacy of words, and his self-conscious role as an artist, have been surprisingly overlooked." Using a variety of critical methods, Mayer leads the reader through Thomas's prose works in roughly chronological order. The chapter on Under Milk Wood is especially useful. This is a helpful study for beginning undergraduates interested in Thomas's writing strategies. D. A. Barton California State University, Long Beach