Auden Studies

The first volume in a series on the work of the poet W. H. Auden. It contains unpublished material by Auden, notably six 1930s poems written in German, translated and introduced by David Constantine, the important early essay, “Writing,” edited by Katherine Bucknell with a Foreword by Naomi Mitchison, selections from Auden’s letters to Stephen Spender, edited and introduced by Nicholas Jenkins, and selections from Auden’s letters to E. R. Dodds and Mrs. Dodds, edited and introduced by Kathleen Bell. Also in the volume are essays by Valentine Cunningham, John Fuller, Julian Symons, Stan Smith, Mick Imlah, John Bridgen, Peter McDonald, and Robert A. Wilson. Edward Mendelson contributes a Supplement to Bloomfield and Mendelson’s authoritative W. H. Auden: A Bibliography, 1924-1969.

The second volume in the Auden Studies series focuses on the first decade of Auden’s literary career and again contains previously unpublished or uncollected poems and prose by Auden, all with scholarly introductions and annotation.

Contributions include poems, songs, and a piece of early travel writing introduced by one of Auden’s biographers, Richard Davenport-Hines. Lyrics set by Benjamin Britten as cabaret songs are presented by Donald Mitchell, Philip Reed, and Nicholas Jenkins. Also in the volume are essays by leading scholars in the field, including Stan Smith and Katherine Bucknell, and the German scholar and close friend of Auden, David Luke, as well as Richard Bozorth and David Pascoe. A further Supplement to Bloomfield and Mendelson’s magisterial Auden Bibliography of 1972 is supplied by Edward Mendelson.

The third volume of Auden Studies presents Auden in maturity, and includes a large amount of unpublished prose, in miniature scholarly editions. The book concentrates on Auden’s relatively underexplored post-1940 writings, and the letters, essay, and lectures it contains demonstrate the Goethean scope of his intellect, which ranged easily and illuminatingly from psychoanalysis to theology, archaeology to politics.

In addition to Auden himself, contributors include Nicholas Jenkins, Katherine Bucknell, G. W. Bowersock, James and Tania Stern, Edward Mendelson, Stella Musulin, Alfred Corn, Ian Sansom, David Bromwich, Lawrence Lipking, Edna Longley, Michael Wood, and Edward Upward.