Auden, W.H.

16mo (122 x 98mm.), FIRST EDITION, NUMBER 4 OF "ABOUT 45 COPIES", INSCRIBED BY AUDEN TO CECIL DAY LEWIS ("To Cecil | With love from | the Author") on the preliminary blank, additionally inscribed by Auden with a Gerard Manley Hopkins quotation ("Dangerous: does | set dancing blood") and with ownership signature of Cecil Day Lewis, some 14 autograph revisions and corrections, with additional autograph corrections filling in type where imperfectly printed, erratum leaf loosely inserted, original orange wrappers printed in black, collector's brown chemise and slipcase, two closed tears to upper wrapper, one at outer edge and one at lower left edge, some minor repairs to spine

Cecil Day Lewis; H. Bradley Martin (his sale, Sotheby's New York, 30 April 1990, lot 2566)

Bloomfield and Mendelson A1

Condition is as described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

AUDEN'S FIRST PUBLISHED COLLECTION OF POETRY, PRINTED BY STEPHEN SPENDER AND INSCRIBED TO THE POET CECIL DAY-LEWIS.

"It was [Auden's] vitality, though, rather than his intellectual power, which most impressed me at the start - a vitality so abundant that, overflowing into certain poses and follies and wildly unrealistic notions, it gave these an air of authority..." (Cecil Day-Lewis, The Buried Day (1960), p.176).

Stephen Spender began the printing of Auden's first book on a small hand-press intended for the printing of chemists' labels. Spender had been printing his own poems when Auden visited him at home in north London over the summer of 1928 and suggested that Spender could also print a a small book of his poems as well. However, the press proved unsuitable for the task, and Spender eventually had the remaining sheets and the binding of Poems completed at the Holywell Press in Oxford.

It is thought that only two thirds of the forty-five copies specified in the limitation were eventually completed. Spender himself described the book existing in "an edition of thirty copies, which is sought after today" (World Within World (1951), p.116). When he received the finished copies, Auden distributed them to his friends and associates, although he could not resist making improvements to his writing before he did so.

In this copy, alongside his many minor emendations and corrections to errors in Spender's printing, Auden revises the third stanza of 'I chose this lean country' with a draft of an additional line which was adopted for future editions: "Who puckered mouth and brow | In ecstasy and pain..."

Auden and Day-Lewis were contemporaries at Oxford, and together had edited Oxford Poetry in 1927.  Numbered 4, this would have been one of the first copies Auden gifted to the members of his circle. Copies 1 and 3 are assumed to be those kept for author and printer and are likely to have been left unnumbered; Spender's copy was later given by Auden to Cyril Connolly and not replaced. Number 2 was given to Christopher Isherwood, to whom the collection is dedicated.

Bloomfield and Mendelson record twelve known copies, three of which lack the printed errata leaf. At least five are now held in UK libraries including the Bodleian, Durham University Library and the British Library.