💌 Who Was Charles? A Letter, a Poem, and a Mystery Hidden in a First Edition

While preparing a beautiful first edition of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood (1954) for listing, I found something I didn’t expect.

A folded piece of paper slipped between the pages - a letter. No envelope. No explanation. Just a note, in ink that’s faded softly with time, addressed to “Peggy,” and signed simply:

Love, Charles.

No reply of course.

Inside, a short poem:

My dear Peggy,

You like angels & I wonder if you wd like these lines I wrote some time ago, inspired by a country wash-day (strictly anon).

Angels go robed

Not in the burnished majesty of cloth of gold,

But in white linen, fresh from the line.

The cool rewarding glory, simple not fine,

Of noon-white linen, roughly spun,

Blown sweet in the wind,

And stiff with the sun

The moment I read it, I stopped.

The poem is intimate. Honest. Beautifully understated. It’s unsigned beyond that quiet “Love, Charles.” And the phrasing… it’s poetic in every sense.

Could it be Charles Causley?

The handwriting has a resemblance. So does the tone, that gentle, rhythmical clarity he was known for. But there’s no definitive link. And perhaps that’s part of the charm. Whoever Charles was, he clearly wrote with feeling. He clearly thought of Peggy when he penned these lines, whether decades ago or more recently, we’ll likely never know.

And that’s what makes this book feel so alive.

It’s already a treasure - a true first edition of Under Milk Wood, with its original dust jacket (unclipped), in solid condition. But now it carries something more: a whisper of a real connection between two people. A secret note tucked between the printed lines of Dylan Thomas’s play for voices.

A mystery, bound in linen and left for someone to find.

Marie, Founder of Literary Treasures