The Welsh poet arrived in New York on his first visit, in 1950, for a programme of readings all over the country. Angelic, devilish, charming, doubting his inner resources for further poetry and pursued by an urge to self-destruction, given to alcoholic binges, he was not what the sober world of American academe expected. The students loved him, though after his first two or three encounters with them, the girls had to be protected. And he made immediate friends with many American writers, journalists and barflies, creating a pop culture mythology of the doomed artist for the late 20th century. This book captures Dylan Thomas's last few years.