Year

The poem was first published in 1951.

The poem was first published in 1951 in Botteghe Oscure, an Italian literary and poetry review. Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night was included in Country Sleep And Other Poems, a 1952 collection of Dylan Thomas's poems. The best evidence for the date of the actual writing of the poem supports the poet's time in Italy in 1947 as the likeliest time, following the publication of his poetry collection Deaths and Entrances in 1946. This collection received very favorable reviews and continues to be one of Thomas's most-read works. There are also mentions that Thomas's masterpiece was composed in 1951, a period when his father was "on his deathbed". Considering the evidence and timing of the poem's publication in Botteghe Oscure in 1951, 1947 seems like a better choice than 1951. That year Thomas traveled through Italy, where he likely had an opportunity to meet Princess Caetani (owner of Botteghe Oscure) and travel through a landscape still very much scarred by the war. Thomas’s father didn’t die until 1952, throwing some doubt on 1951 as the year of the actual writing of Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.