The third volume of Auden Studies presents Auden in maturity, and includes much previously unpublished prose by him, as well as a selection from his letters. The book concentrates on the relatively unexplored area of Auden's post-1940 writings, and the letters, essay, and lectures here demonstrate the scope of his intellect, which ranged easily from psychoanalysis to theology, archaeology to politics. Leading scholars and critics contribute discussions about many important aspects of the later career of this major poet and intellectual.

An intimate portrait of London intellectual life, the breakdown of a marriage and the friendship between two women, ‘What You Will’ draws the reader into a spellbinding world of beauty and tension. Gwen, an American painter, lives in London with her English husband, Lawrence, an Oxford don. When Gwen’s friend Hilary arrives from New York bruised by a broken engagement, a lost job and an unsuitable love affair, Gwen is determined to find her someone to marry. But will he be another Oxford intellectual, a member of London's bohemia, or a professional from the scandal-ridden New York museum world? But with Gwen’s arrival the bonds of friendship, love, and marriage are severely tested. Pressure builds in the household, affecting Gwen and Lawrence’s small son as he struggles to engage with the sophistication and savagery around him. Tackling deep and unsetttling questions – Are we slaves to our impulses or to one another? Is it possible to have both love and freedom? Can the artist or the intellectual illuminate such questions?, ‘What You Will’ is a subtly wrought, multi-layered, and hypnotically suspenseful tale about how we handle our most intimate relationships.

The second volume in the Auden Studies series, 'The Language of Learning and the Language of Love', focuses on the first decade of Auden's literary career and considers his experiences both as a public figure and a private individual. It contains previously unpublished or uncollected poems and prose by Auden - all with scholarly introductions and annotation. The volume reveals how Auden, as poet, teacher, and dramatist, battled with his literary ancestors, experienced love, and devised a rhetoric to express both homosexual feelings and artistic impulses. Contributions to Auden Studies 2 include poems, songs, and a piece of early travel writing introduced by Auden's new biographer, the historian Richard Davenport-Hines. Lyrics offered to Benjamin Britten as cabaret songs are presented by Donald Mitchell, Philip Reed, and Nicholas Jenkins. Also in the volume is a fascinating array of essays about Auden by leading scholars in the field, including Stan Smith and Katherine Bucknell, and the German scholar and close friend of Auden, David Luke. A further Supplement to Bloomfield and Mendelson's magisterial Auden Bibliography of 1972 is supplied by Edward Mendelson. 'The Language of Learning and the Language of Love' will be of immense interest to all readers of W. H. Auden and of twentieth-century poetry.

This is the first volume in a new series on the work of the poet W. H. Auden. The volume contains a large amount of Unpublished material by Auden, notably six poems written in German in the early 1930s, translated here by the poet and scholar David Constantine, as well as the complete version of the important early essay, `Writing', with a new foreword by its original editor Naomi Mitchison. There are substantial selections from Auden's letters to Stephen Spender and to E. R. Dodds and Mrs Dodds: these are the first Auden letters to receive a scholarly presentation with full annotation. Also in the volume are essays about Auden and his mentors and contemporaries, by leading scholars in the field such as Valentine Cunningham, John Fuller, Julian Symons, and Stan Smith, as well as by outstanding newcomers. For bibliophiles, there is advice on collecting Auden's works, and Edward Mendelson has contributed a Supplement to his comprehensive W. H. Auden: A Bibliography, 1924-1969.

You know the terror that for poets lurks
Beyond the ferry when to Minos brought.
Poets must utter their Collected Works,
Including Juvenilia.. . .
--from "Letter to Lord Byron" (1936)

Regardless of how poets feel about their youthful attempts at verse, their early poems not only enrich our understanding of their artistic growth, but also reveal much about the nature of literary genius. No other twentieth-century poet has left behind such a wealth of early poetry as did W. H. Auden. By bringing together for the first time all the poems written by Auden between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one (1922-1928), this book allows us a rare, detailed look at the literary personality, development, and preoccupations of a major poet. Auden's readers will be fascinated to find in these poems the earliest evidence of his interest in psychoanalysis, his conflicted attitude toward his homosexuality, his self-conscious approach to poetry, and his life-long journey toward a religious sense of the world.

This collection includes over two hundred poems, most of them never published before, concluding with the contents of Auden's privately printed volume, "Poems" (1928). The poems are generously annotated with information on Auden's education, reading, literary concerns, and personal life. In her introduction, Katherine Bucknell traces important themes relating to the poet's entire career, and describes crucial but hitherto unknown aspects of his youth during his years at Gresham's School and at Christ Church, Oxford. Throughout this work we see in Auden an admirable instinct for experiment, a thorough testing of tradition, and a gathering mastery of technique and thematic argument.