The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: Prose, Volume V: 1963-1968

by W. H. Auden, Edward Mendelson (Editor)

Overview

The penultimate volume of the complete prose of one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century

This fifth volume of W. H. Auden's prose displays a great writer’s mind in its full maturity of wisdom, learning, and emotional and moral intelligence. It contains his most personally revealing essays, the ones in which he wrote for the first time about the full history of his family life, his sexuality, and the development of his moral and religious beliefs. Among these works are the lightly disguised autobiographies that appear in long essays on the Protestant mystics and on Shakespeare’s sonnets. The book also features the full text of his T. S. Eliot Memorial Lectures, Secondary Worlds, and many unpublished or unavailable lectures and speeches.

Edward Mendelson’s introduction and comprehensive notes provide biographical and historical explanations of obscure references. The text includes corrections and revisions that Auden marked in personal copies of his work and that are published here for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691151717
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/02/2015
Series:	The Complete Works of W. H. Auden , #5
Pages:	608
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.60(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Edward Mendelson is the literary executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. His books include Early Auden, Later Auden, The Things That Matter, and Lives of the New York Intellectuals.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction xiii

The Text of This Edition xli

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, 1963–1966

Foreword to The Plough and the Pen 3

Telling Tales 5

Adam as a Welshman 11

Beyond Politics 15

An Improbable Life 19

Introduction to The Art of Eating, by M. F. K. Fisher 37

Introduction to The Protestant Mystics 42

[To Benjamin Britten on His Fiftieth Birthday] 65

Louis MacNeice 66

Louis MacNeice: A Memorial Address 69

A Symposium on W. H. Auden's "A Change of Air" 73

Foreword to W. H. Auden: A Bibliography, by B. C. Bloomfield 78

Introduction to Selected Poems, by Louis MacNeice 80

Foreword to Markings, by Dag Hammarskjöld 81

Introduction to The Sonnets, by William Shakespeare 92

Speaking of Books 109

Private Poet 112

A Short Defense of Poetry 117

Preface to The Tree and the Master 120

T. S. Eliot, O.M.: A Tribute 122

Behaviour, Action and Enchantment 124

President's Address 132

As It Seemed to Us 134

The Corruption of Innocent Neutrons 160

Mozart in the Stacks 164

A Word from W. H. Auden 165

One of the Family 166

Books of the Year: A Personal Choice 178

Introduction to Nineteenth-Century British Minor Poets 179

Foreword to Antiworlds, by Andrei Voznesensky 185

Introduction to Selected Poetry and Prose, by George Gordon, Lord Byron 187

Noah Greenberg (1909–1966) 201

Heresies 202

Nowness and Permanence 209

The Fall of Rome 214

The Worship of God in a Secular Age: Some Reflexions 229

Foreword to History in English Words, by Owen Barfield 233

Books of the Year: Some Personal Choices 236

Afterword to The Golden Key, by George MacDonald 237

SECONDARY WORLDS

Secondary Worlds 241

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS 1967–1968

Foreword to No Man's Time, by V. S. Yanovsky 327

Good and Evil in The Lord of the Rings 331

Mr G 336

By the Grace of God and Henry Tudor, Archbishop 341

A Civilized Man 347

[Contribution to Attacks of Taste] 352

[Liner notes to a recording of Poems and Songs of Middle Earth] 353

A Don in the World 354

Foreword to H. A. R.: The Autobiography of Father Reinhold 359

A Knight of Doleful Countenance 361

A Very Inquisitive Old Party 374

Words and Notes 382

A Letter of Introduction 388

The Greatest of the Monsters 389

APPENDICES

I Auden as Anthologist and Editor 401

II Lectures, Sermons, Speeches, and Dialogues 404

III Responses to Questionnaires 483

IV Auden on the Air 489

V Tributes, Citations, and Endorsements 510

VI Letters to the Editor and Other Public Statements 512

VII Lost and Unwritten Work 517

TEXTUAL NOTES

Essays and Reviews, 1963–1966 521

Secondary Worlds 546

Essays and Reviews, 1967–1968 551

Index of Titles and Books Reviewed 559

Editorial Reviews

"Praise for previous edition: No major writer's complete works are more fun to read."

Publishers Weekly

A NewStatesman Book of the Year for 2015, selected by Leo Robson

One of Truthdig’s 2015 Books of the Year

"Stupendous collections. . . . [The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Prose] is becoming one of the great achievements of current literary scholarship."—-Fintan O'Toole, New York Review of Books

"Wholly exemplary. . . . Edward Mendelson deserves gratitude and unmitigated praise."—-Seamus Perry, Times Literary Supplement

"No one could take [Auden] for anything less than an extremely accomplished, fluent, professional writer . . . As an editor, Mendelson is meticulous, judicious and quite extraordinarily thorough. To say that Princeton University Press, in producing such handsome and usable volumes, has matched Mendelson's editorial standards is to give high praise indeed."—-Stefan Collini, London Review of Books

"This rich horde, beautifully produced and meticulously edited, will be my bedside reading for the rest of the year and beyond."—-David Collard, Times Literary Supplement

"Praise for previous volumes: "The articles will delight any reader with their wit, charm, and elegance."—-Charles Rosen, New York Review of Books

"Praise for previous edition: When you add in the volumes already devoted to plays, libretti, poems, it becomes hard to avoid describing the whole enterprise as heroic. In fact it could also be described as unique, for no other twentieth-century English poet has been so fully and patiently honoured."—-Frank Kermode, London Review of Books

"The fifth and sixth volumes of Auden's collected prose . . . Bring to a conclusion a project that began in 1996 under the meticulous editorship of Edward Mendelson. It is hard to find superlatives adequate to the accomplishment. The successive volumes, spaced roughly by decades and each running from some 600 to over 800 pages, include lively and detailed introductions, which end up forming a kind of literary biography of Auden as essayist. . . . To add to the pleasures of editorial precision, the volumes themselves have been beautifully produced."—-Eric Ormsby, Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher