The Writers of Wales Database

FERRIS, PAUL

Paul Ferris was born in Swansea in 1929 and attended Swansea Grammar School. After two years’ National Service as a pay clerk, he worked for a local newspaper (where Dylan Thomas had worked twenty years previously) and then became a freelance writer based in London. From 1955 to 1989 he contributed feature articles to The Observer of London and was its radio critic. Paul is a biographer and novelist

His thirty or so books include the standard biography of Dylan Thomas (1977, 1999, 2005), and the only biography of his wife Caitlin (1993); both of which won Arts Council awards. He is the editor of Dylan Thomas’ letters (1986, 2000). Paul’s most recent novel is Cora Crane (HarperCollins, 2003), which is based on the mistress of the American writer Stephen Crane.

Selected Publications:
Fiction
A Changed Man (Hutchinson, 1958)
Then We Fall (Hutchinson, 1960)
A Family Affair (Hutchinson, 1963) (Panther, 1965)
The Destroyer (Hutchinson, 1965)
The Dam (Hutchinson, 1967) (Arrow |Books, 1968)
Very Personal Problems (Weidenfeld, 1973)
The Cure (Weidenfeld, 1974) (Dial Press, New York, 1974) (Avon, US, 1974)
The Detective (Weidenfeld, 1974) (Coward McCann, U.S., 1977, as High Places)
Talk to Me About England (Weidenfeld, 1979)  (Coward McCann, U.S., 1979) (Grafton, 1987)
A Distant Country (Weidenfeld, 1983)
Children of  Dust (Grafton, 1988) (Harper Collins, 1998)
The Divining Heart (HarperCollins, 1995, 1996)
Infidelity (HarperCollins, 1999)
Cora Crane (HarperCollins, 2003, 2004)

Biography
Dylan Thomas (Hodder, 1977) (Dial Press, U.S., 1977) (Penguin, 1978, 1985)  (Paragon,  U.S., 1989) (Orion, 1999) (Counterpoint, US, 2000) (Y Lolfa, 2006)
The House of Northcliffe: The Harmsworths of Fleet Street (Weidenfeld, 1971) (World Publishing, U.S., 1972)
Richard Burton (Weidenfeld, 1976) (Coward McCann, U.S., 1981)
A Portrait of Richard Burton (Weidenfeld, 1984)
Sir Huge: The Life of Huw Wheldon (Michael Joseph, 1990)
Caitlin: The Life of Caitlin Thomas (Hutchinson, 1993) (Pimlico, 1995)
Dr Freud: A Life (Sinclair Stevenson, 1997)  (Counterpoint, US, 1998)

Other Non-Fiction
The City (Gollancz, 1960)  (Penguin 1962) (Random House, US, 1961)
The Church of England (Gollancz (1962) (Macmillan, New York, 1963) (Penguin, 1964)
The Doctors (Gollancz, 1965) (Penguin, 1967)
The Nameless: Abortion in Britain Today (Hutchinson, 1966) (Penguin, 1967)
Men and Money (Hutchinson, 1968) (Penguin, 1970) (Macmillan, U.S., 1969)
The New Militants. Crisis in the Trade Unions (Penguin Special, 1972)
Gentlemen of Fortune. The World’s Merchant and Investment Bankers (Weidenfeld, 1984) (Wm. Morrow, U.S., as The Master Bankers)
Sex and the British (Michael Joseph, 1993) (Mandarin, 1994)
Gower in History: Myth, People, Landscape (Armanaleg Books, 2009)

Contributed to:
Collected Letters of Dylan Thomas (editor) (Dent, 1986) (Revised edn, Dent, 2000)

TV biopics on Welsh subjects for the BBC (director: Richard Lewis):
The Revivalist (Evan Roberts) (1975)
Dylan (1978)
Nye (1982)
The Extremist (John Jenkins) (1984)
The Fasting Girl (1989)