PAUL FERRIS, the author of the definitive biography of the poet Dylan Thomas, has died aged 89.
Ferris worked as a journalist, biographer, television scriptwriter and novelist throughout his career.
He was briefly on the staff of The Observer; and thereafter contributed feature articles to it as a freelance, before working as its radio critic for thirty-five years.
Ferris’ varied subjects for biographies included Sigmund Freud, Huw Wheldon and Richard Burton, as well as writing novels and non-fiction. His most recent book Gower in History: Myth, People, Landscape was published in 2009.
In the introduction to his biography of Thomas, Ferris wrote: “My private reason for wanting to write about him is that I was born in a suburb of Swansea, fifteen years after Thomas and a mile from his house.”
Apart from a fleeting encounter, Ferris had no personal dealings with Thomas; but the fact that both came from suburban households in Swansea helped him place the poet in his locale.
Like Thomas, he attended Swansea Grammar School and started work on the South Wales Evening Post. The 1977 biography of Thomas became the standard work, with its revised edition still in print.
In 1985 Ferris edited all 1,200 of the poet’s letters, which were released under the title The Collected Letters of Dylan Thomas, and is considered an invaluable resource for studying the famed poet.
In 1993, Ferris also wrote a biography of Thomas’s wife, Caitlin.
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