Books: The Legend of Dylan Thomas

ADVENTURES IN THE SKIN TRADE AND OTHER STORIES (275 pp.) — DylanThomas —New Directions ($3.50).

SEVEN LETTERS TO OSCAR WILLIAMS (13 pp.) — Dylan Thomas — in New World Writing #7 — New American Library (50¢)

Modern poetry often seems a pretty dreary cocktail party. In a quiet corner, of course, perches the aged eagle, T. S. Eliot, 66, still far and away the No. 1 living poet of the 20th century, sipping his extra-dry sherry of resignation. His old white magic still works, but it no longer holds any surprises. Eliot's lesser poetic cousins—Auden,...