About the Book
This sixth and final 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 the full text of the only book that he regarded as an autobiography, A Certain World, in which he portrayed himself by selecting and commenting on writings by others that most affected him throughout his life. It also features late essays and reviews that in many cases present lightly disguised autobiographies, among them the most detailed account of his sexuality, in "Papa Was a Wise Old Sly-Boots." The appendixes gather lectures and public talks that are otherwise unpublished or unavailable. Edward Mendelson's 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.
Table of Contents:
Preface ix Acknowledgements xi The Text of This Edition xiii A CERTAIN WORLD A Certain World 1 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS 1969-1973 Foreword to the American edition of The Pendulum, by Anthony Rossiter 341 Foreword to Persons from Porlock and Other Plays For Radio,by Louis MacNeice 344 A Civilized Voice 347 To Stephen Spender on His Sixtieth Birthday 359 Papa Was a Wise Old Sly-Boots 360 A Piece of Pure Fiction in the Firbank Mode 368 Freedom and Necessity in Poetry 370 In Defense of the Tall Story 378 Foreword to G. K. Chesterton: A Selection from His Non-Fictional Prose 384 Translation 390 Foreword to I Am an Impure Thinker, by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy 395 [A Tribute to Igor Stravinsky] 396 Concerning the Unpredictable 397 Translator's Note [to the Icelandic "Song of Rig"] 405 A Russian Aesthete 405 Foreword to The Sorrows of Young Werther [and] Novella, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 412 Foreword to Selected Poems, by Joseph Brodsky 417 Lame Shadows 419 Robert to the Rescue 424 Portrait with a Wart or Two 434 Well Done, Sir Walter Scott! 437 [A Review of Hogarth on the High Life, by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg] 446 Foreword to Plastic Sense, by Malcolm de Chazal 446 Foreword to Austria: People and Language, by Stella Musulin 450 Foreword to Selected Poems, by Gunnar Ekelof 453 The Artist's Private Face 456 W. H. Auden on George Orwell 458 The Anomalous Creature 462 The Mountain Allowed Them Pride 465 He Descended into Hell in Vain 467 Craftsman, Artist, Genius 472 Louise Bogan 1897-1970 475 The Megrims 478 Too Much Mustard 482 W. H. Auden on the Young Mr Goethe 483 Foreword to Sense & Inconsequence, by Angus Stewart 486 Chester Kallman: A Voice of Importance 487 The Diary of a Diary 491 A Worcestershire Lad 495 Down with the "Melting Pot" 500 A Genius and a Gentleman 503 Telling It the Way It Was 506 I'll Be Seeing You Again, I Hope 509 A Poet of the Actual 510 Doing Oneself In 514 Wilson's Sabine Farm 518 To an Old Friend [Cecil Day-Lewis] 523 Introduction to The Spirit of Man: An Anthology, compiled by Robert Bridges 526 The Poet of No More 528 A Saint-Simon of Our Time 531 Other People's Babies 536 An Odd Couple 538 A Kind of Poetic Justice 544 Evangelist of the Life Force 546 Happy Birthday, Dorothy Day 551 Marianne Moore 1887-1972 556 Preface to Selected Songs of Thomas Campion 559 Introduction to George Herbert: Selected by W. H. Auden 562 Introduction to A Choice of Dryden's Verse 567 Foreword to Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, by E. M. Forster 571 How Can I Tell What I Think Till I See What I Say? 575 The Gift of Wonder 579 Renderings 585 An Odd Ball 588 Veni, Vici, VD 594 Larkin's Choice 598 Rhyme and Reason 600 Between Crossfires 602 Indestructible 609 Progress Is the Mother of Problems (G. K. Chesterton) 611 Praiseworthy 618 Responses to the Near East 620 Books Which Mean Much to Me 624 A Russian with Common Sense 626 "I have a ferocious bee in my bonnet" 632 An Odd Ball in an Odd Country at an Odd Time 633 Where Are the Arts Going? 638 Death at Random 639 Some Reflections on the Arts 644 An Odd Fish 645 FOREWORDS AND AFTERWORDS Forewords and Afterwords 655 ADDENDA TO PREVIOUS VOLUMES Addenda to Previous Volumes 669 APPENDICES I Auden as Anthologist and Editor 675 II Lectures and Speeches 679 III Responses to Questionnaires 724 IV Auden on the Air 726 V Endorsements 731 VI Letters to the Editor and Other Public Statements 733 VII Auden and the Liturgy 739 VIII Lost and Unwritten Work 741 TEXTUAL NOTES A Certain World 745 Essays and Reviews 1969-1973 751 Forewords and Afterwords 774 Index of Titles and Books Reviewed 787
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.
Review :
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 volumes: "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 Praise for previous volumes: "No major writer's complete works are more fun to read."--Publishers Weekly Praise for previous volumes: "A feast of language and insight."--Arthur Kirsch, Washington Post Book World "Where should the praise go for this magnificent edition of W.H. Auden's prose, now rounded off by its final two volumes? To the great Anglo American poet himself for having produced such incisive and memorable criticism? To Edward Mendelson, whose scrupulous editing calls to mind Samuel Beckett's phrase 'No author better served'? Or to designer Jan Lilly and the Princeton University Press for the elegance and beauty of the books themselves? One thing is certain: This is what scholarly publishing is meant to be."--Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Praise for previous volumes: "The only way to get at Auden as he happened, year by year, bit by bit, and not as he, or his later biographers, want us to think of him."--Tom D'Evelyn, Boston Book Review "Mendelson's editions of Auden's works are among the great achievements of modern literary scholarship and his introduction here is a masterpiece of the editor's tactful art, guiding readers through the heaped documents to those where the poet writes most significantly... about himself and his work."--Jeremy Noel-Tod, Literary Review "[B]eautiful."--Jon Sweeney, The Tablet "Mendelson's notes and appendices contribute illuminating, and sometimes amusing, extra-textual detail."--Michael Dirda, The Washington Post "Anyone who cares about literature will be grateful for ... the final installments of The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: Prose."--Leo Robson, New Statesman "[B]eautifully designed by Princeton University Press, edited with great care. No other poet of the 20th century has been honoured by this treatment. Perhaps no other deserves it."--Robert Fulford, National Post "W. H. Auden was a prolific writer. Volumes 5 and 6 of the complete works collect the prose he wrote in the last decade of his life. The essays and reviews illustrate the breadth of Auden's erudition, his engagement with a Christian ethos, and the clarity that belief brought to his world... These volumes, and the entire series, should be available in all libraries."--R. T. Prus, Choice "Princeton University Press is publishing [Auden's] complete works, verse and prose, in (by my count) 10 beautiful volumes, splendidly edited by Edward Mendelson... These two volumes of prose have only the unity of purpose embodied in Auden himself: his style, his turns of mood and phrase."--Denis Donoghue, Irish Times "[R]ange, brilliance, and unflagging energy show everywhere the imprint of a master."--William H. Pritchard, The New Criterion "If Mendelson's clarion call does not convert self-professed literature scions, nothing will... Research scholars and general readers will be swept away by Auden's range of reading and Mendelson's scrupulous editing. This definitive volume should be in all English departments throughout the world."--Subhasis Chattopadhyay, Prabuddha Bharata
