13 AUGUST 1965, Page 12

Dylan Thomas

sm,—You may wish to correct for your readers two errors in the June 25 review of The Days of Dylan Thomas.

Your reviewer states that American writers on Dylan Thomas (specifically me) 'never send one even the roughest of proofs.' This is wrong. Copies of my text, either in whole or in part, were sent to everyone importantly mentioned in the book. I was thus able to benefit from the comments of Caitlin Thomas, Pamela Hansford Johnson, John Malcolm Brinnin, A. E. Trick, Yvonne Macnamara, Donald Taylor, Jack. Lindsay, Vernon Watkins and others. Only two people did not respond to my request that my accuracy be checked, one of whom was your reviewer. Since Mr. Constantine Fitz- Gibbon is praised as a man of 'cartographer's pre- cision' in matters of the Thomas biography, it may be a useful corrective to your review to say that when Mr. FitzGibbon read the proofs of the book, he praised the scholarship, .stated that there were facts in the book which he intended to use, and offered certain corrections which were, as he put it, 'almost all quite trivial.'

Your reviewer states that Mrs. McKenna has been given excessive credit for the photographs. If the description of the book had been properly taken from the title-page, rather than from the dust-jacket, your notice would have shown that there are 'photo- graphs by Rollie McKenna and others.' It is not incorrect that Mrs. McKenna should receive the major credit since fifty of the photographs are by her; the next largest number by any one photo- grapher is seven. And every photograph is credited to its proper author.

Division of General Education, Boston University, Boston, Mass.

BILL READ