The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: Poems, Volume II - by W H Auden (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The second 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 second volume 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 follows Auden as a mature artist, containing all the poems that he published or submitted for publication from 1940 until his death in 1973, at age sixty-six. This includes all his poetry collections from this period, from The Double Man (1941) through Epistle to a Godson (1972). The volume also features an edited version of his incomplete, posthumous book Thank You, Fog, as well as his self-designated "posthumous" poems.

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 first volume of this edition, Poems, Volume I: 1927-1939, is also available.

Review Quotes

"Two volumes which Auden admirers and scholars will surely welcome as the apotheosis of the Princeton series, and of Mendelson's Auden publications."---Mick Gowar, Book 2.0

"Edward Mendelson's two-volume collection of Auden's poems, spanning 1927 to 1973, is a welcome arrival, compiled by sage hands. . . . [Mendelson] is perhaps the poet's best reader."---Nick Ripatrazone, National Review

"[These two volumes] compiled and magisterially edited by Edward Mendelson, a leading Auden authority, should show readers what a versatile and commanding voice the poet possessed."---Andrew Rosenheim, The Tablet

"A Tablet Book of the Year"

"Mendelson could not have conceived a more fitting tribute to this poet than doing for Auden's work what Auden was always attempting to do for his own life: organize it intellectually into a grand system that takes in every detail and provides aesthetic satisfaction to the soul. . . . The definitive edition of Auden's poetry."---Stephen J. Schuler, Ad Fontes

"A grand thing."---Tristram Fane Saunders, Daily Telegraph

"A Daily Telegraph Best Poetry Book of the Year"

"A New Statesman Book of the Year"

"Auden can be magically conversational, charming and sophisticated, vivid, lyrical and amusing. A master of rhyme and metre, he has a brilliant range of allusions and important ideas, wisdom and moral force."---Jeffrey Meyers, PN Review

"[Auden's] oeuvre has been given a new life. . . . [in these] two new and heavily annotated volumes. . . . [Mendelson's] mastery of this sprawling material is legendary."---Brad Leithauser, Wall Street Journal

"A dazzling, scholarly triumph."---Michael Dirda, Washington Post

"A remarkable editorial enterprise."---David Bromwich, Times Literary Supplement

"A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year"

"As authoritative a presentation as we are likely ever to get. . . . Wonderful books."---David Mason, Hudson Review

"Exhilaratingly prospective. . . . some of the most vivid poems ever committed to English . . . these two books are a monument to the acumen, scholarship, and perseverance of Edward Mendelson."---Ron Horning, Brooklyn Rail

"Glorious."---Bel Mooney, Daily Mail

"In a remarkable work of scholarship, editor Edward Mendelson has assembled every poem and every revision--and explains every reference. . . . For the budding or mature poet, it's indispensable."-- "Mosaic"

"Magnificent. . . . Mendelson's Auden has long been regarded as a monument of literary scholarship, and these two heavy poetry volumes complete the grounds for that acclaim. . . . An amazing thicket of scholarship and commentary draped around some of the most-studied and most-quoted poetry of the 20th century."---Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review

"Mendelson has championed a reassessment of the poet's later work. He has not achieved this through polemic, but rather through a patient and careful effort. . . . I have been reading and teaching and writing about Auden's poetry for many years, but I have taken the opportunity offered by these two volumes to try, as best I can, to encounter it all anew."---Alan Jacobs, Harper's Magazine

"The new two-volume set of W. H. Auden's complete poems, meticulously assembled and presented by Edward Mendelson, is highly recommended."---David Lehman, Best American Poetry Blog

"These volumes show the poetic beauty and intellectual audacity of Auden's work with a power that left me exultant."---Richard Davenport-Hines, Times Literary Supplement

"To read Auden's Complete Works therefore is not just to encounter the inventions of a polymathic, often ingenious writer and poet, but to enter into a 'whole climate of opinion, ' to explore an age by way of one of its representative figures. . . . Edifying."---James Matthew Wilson, National Review

About the Author

Edward Mendelson is the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and the Literary Executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden. His books include Moral Agents, The Things That Matter, and Early Auden, Later Auden.