An Edition of R.S. Thomas's Letters to Raymond Garlick, 1951-1999, with a Critical Introduction and Full Notes

The Context of the Research
My research work is towards the publication of the letters of R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), one of the finest poets in English of the twentieth century, to fellow poet and scholar Dr Raymond Garlick (1926-), himself a distinguished cultural figure. The correspondence, which is a substantial collection of 155 letters, spans the years 1951-1999. Shortly before his death R.S. Thomas informed me that Raymond Garlick was the only person with whom he had corresponded regularly and at any length about literary and cultural matters. In the light of this assertion, it is important to note in relation to the context of the research that the projected volume / for which I have already been offered a contract by one of Wales's leading publishing houses, Gomer Press / will be unique in the field of R.S. Thomas studies. The correspondence is without doubt a crucially important historical and literary document, illuminating as it does a revolutionary half-century in the cultural life of the UK and Ireland, while also referencing wider international concerns such as green issues and nuclear disarmament. In this context it is fair to say that no critical or biographical study of R.S. Thomas could safely be written without recourse to these letters.

Aims and Objectives
To summarize the points noted in full above, the chief objective is the publication of a volume / R.S. Thomas: Letters to Raymond Garlick, 1951-1999 / that will shed important new light on this major poet. Aims and objectives in the course of the research itself will include (i) presenting an accurate transcription of this large corpus of manuscript letters, previously unpublished and indeed hitherto unknown; (ii) providing comprehensive Notes which will fully explain and contextualize these highly allusive letters; (iii) clarifying and explaining in particular / given that Raymond Garlick's side of the correspondence has not survived / the extra dimension of a wide body of ideas, opinions and events that constitute a further context behind these letters; (iv) bringing out the general cultural significance of the often radically divergent cultural visions of Thomas and Garlick, as attested by these letters; (v) enlarging the process of contextualization further by providing a substantial critical Introduction that will place the issues raised in the correspondence in relation to wider cultural factors, both national and international. In publishing and elucidating these letters, the overall objective will therefore be to add crucially important new material / in scholarly and accessible form / at the point of contact between primary sources and the critical reception of the poet.

Potential Applications and Benefits
It is important to note that R.S. Thomas's work is acclaimed by the academic and general reader alike. In addition to the aspects already noted, my edition of the letters will offer new and exciting insights into R.S. Thomas's oeuvre over half a century, deepening our understanding and appreciation not only of individual poems and prose pieces but also of how as a major writer he perceived his role as a poet at particular points over that half-century. My research will also offer a fresh understanding of the sophisticated (auto)biographical dimension of R.S. Thomas's work (crucial in the case of a poet generally regarded as reclusive), and, in addition, will throw new light on Raymond Garlick's own poetry and prose (the volume will demonstrate for the first time, for instance, that several of Garlick's most important poems are in fact responses to these very letters). These important discoveries will be made available to as wide a public as possible / through the published volume itself, of course, but also by means of my lectures, seminars and conference papers on the correspondence at educational establishments UK-wide and abroad, and through radio and television interviews.