The first of two volumes of the eagerly anticipated first complete
edition of Auden's poems--including some that have never been published
before
W. H. Auden (1907-1973) is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth
century, and his reputation has only grown since his death. Published on
the hundredth anniversary of the year in which he began to write poetry,
this is the first of two volumes of the first complete edition of
Auden's poems. Edited, introduced, and annotated by renowned Auden
scholar Edward Mendelson, this definitive edition includes all the poems
Auden wrote for publication, in their original texts, and all his later
revised versions, as well as poems and songs he never published, some of
them printed here for the first time.
This volume traces the development of Auden's early career, and contains
all the poems, including juvenilia, that he published or submitted for
publication, from his first printed work, in 1927, at age twenty,
through the poems he wrote during his first months in America, in 1939,
when he was thirty-two. The book also includes poems that Auden wrote
during his adult career with the expectation that he might publish them,
but which he never did; song lyrics that he wrote to be set to music by
Benjamin Britten, but which he never put into print; and verses that he
wrote for magazines at schools where he was teaching.
The main text presents the poems in their original published versions.
The notes include the extensive revisions that he made to his poems over
the course of his career, and provide explanations of obscure
references.
The second volume of this edition, Poems, Volume 2: 1940-1973, is also
available.
