Prose ─ 1956-1962

This fourth volume of W.H. Auden's prose provides a unique picture of this legendary writer's mind and art when he was at the height of his powers, from 1956 through 1962, including the years when he was professor of Poetry at Oxford. The volume includes his best-known and most important prose collection, The Dyer's Hand, as well as scores of essays, reviews, and lectures on subjects ranging from J. R. R. Tolkien and Martin Luther to psychedelic drugs, cooking, and Homer. Much of the material has never been collected in book form, and some selections, such as the witty orations Auden wrote for ceremonies at Oxford University, are almost entirely unknown.

Edward Mendelson's introduction and comprehensive notes provide biographical and historical explanations of all obscure refereces. The text includes extensive corrections and revisions that Auden marked in personal copies of his work and which are printed here for the first time.

The series serves as the definitive text for all the works Auden published or intended to publish in the form in which he expected to see them printed. The essays and reviews will appear in the next few volumes, and the final volumes will contain the poems.

Edward Mendelson is the literary executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden and the Lionel Trillign Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. His Books include Early Auden, Later Auden, and The Things That Matter.