Dylan's Whodunnits

Shedunnit

Caroline Crampton

Books, Arts

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas had a passion for detective stories. John Goodby is Professor of Arts and Culture at Sheffield Hallam University, and an expert on Dylan Thomas. He edited The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas and has co-authored a biography of Thomas. He is also a poet, translator and arts organiser. Members of the Shedunnit Book Club can hear more of Guy and John's conversation as they cover 1930s poets beyond Dylan Thomas in this bonus episode. Spoiler for The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie at 21:17. Mentioned in this episode: — Murder's A Swine by Nap Lombard — The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, edited by John Goodby — Dylan Thomas by John Goodby and Chris Wigginton — The Death of the King's Canary by Dylan Thomas and John Davenport — Ellery Queen's Poetic Justice, edited by Ellery Queen — The Three Weird Sisters (screenplay) — The Beach of Falesá, novella by Robert Louis Stevenson, adapted by Thomas — The Doctor and the Devils by Dylan Thomas — “The Waste Land” by T. S. Eliot, collected in The Waste Land — Crime Fiction: A Reader's Guide by Barry Foreshaw — "The Pleasure Principle” by Philip Larkin, collected in Philip Larkin: The Complete Poems — “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas — "Altawise by Owl Light" by Dylan Thomas — The Oxford Book of English Verse — After the Funeral by Agatha Christie — Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas — "Deaths and Entrances" by Dylan Thomas — “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas — "And Death Shall Have No Dominion” by Dylan Thomas — “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London” by Dylan Thomas — “Among those Killed in the Dawn Raid was a Man Aged a Hundred” by Dylan Thomas — "Return Journey," radio broadcast by Dylan Thomas More Shedunnit episodes: — The Death of the Country House — Dorothy L Sayers Solves Her Mystery — A Mysterious Glossary NB: Links to Blackwell's are affiliate links, meaning that the podcast receives a small commission when you purchase a book there (the price remains the same for you). Blackwell's is a UK bookselling chain that ships internationally at no extra charge. To be the first to know about future developments with the podcast, sign up for the newsletter at shedunnitshow.com/newsletter. The podcast is on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as @ShedunnitShow, and you can find it in all major podcast apps. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the next episode. Click here to do that now in your app of choice. Find a full transcript of this episode at shedunnitshow.com/dylanswhodunnitstranscript. Music by Audioblocks and Blue Dot Sessions. See shedunnitshow.com/musiccredits for more details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Golden Age detective fiction is known for its accessibility, its readability, its language that is immediately understandable.
0:12.0	It doesn't require you to spend time studying what the language means.
0:15.6	You focus instead on trying to solve the murder.
0:18.8	But at the same time during the 1920s, 30s and 40s, modern poetry was often the very opposite.
0:27.8	Complex, obscure, difficult.
0:31.6	The poetry and detective fiction were written in the same period, but they seemed to be worlds apart.
0:37.3	And yet some of those poets were at home in both of these literary worlds.
0:42.1	Dylan Thomas, the great Welsh poet, was one of those.
0:45.6	Indeed, Dylan Thomas was a great devour of detective fiction. Let's delve into Dylan
0:52.4	and detective Stories. Welcome to She Dunnet. I'm Guy Cuthbertson, a professor of literature and culture, but more importantly, I'm also Caroline's husband. To begin at the beginning.
1:28.0	Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 in Swansea, the town Thomas called Ugly Lovely,
1:35.8	situated on a beautiful bay where industrial Wales meets wild whales.
1:41.3	He grew up there during the golden age of detective fiction. He later recalled the many
1:46.0	interests of him and his Swansea pals including free love, free beer, murder, Michelangelo, ping pong, ambition, Ciballius and girls.
2:00.0	Incidentally, an early girlfriend of his was Pamela Hansford Johnson, who would write detective
2:05.2	fiction together with her husband under the name Knapp Lombard.
2:09.9	The She-Denit Book Club read their 1943 novel Murders a Swine back in November 2021.
2:16.2	Thomas moved to London, then Cornwall, and married Caitlin McNamara in 1937. The couple lived in many places, including Oxfordshire, but they are most
2:26.7	associated with Lahn in Wales, where they lived at the boathouse, and he wrote and read in a separate writing shed overlooking the estuaries.
2:36.2	If anywhere is Dylan country though, it is Swansea where Seagull's fight on the unconvincing
2:41.4	Dylan Thomas statue and tourists tire themselves out walking up the hill to his birthplace.
2:47.0	For a brief happy period I taught a Dylan Thomas course at Swansea University.
	...

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