An Anthology vol IV 1923-1924
MASEFIELD'S COPY OF AUDEN'S FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT
Public School Verse An Anthology vol IV 1923-1924
Heinemann, 1924.
First (sole) edition. Original cloth backed grey paper covered boards with white title label to spine. Remains of original glassine jacket. Editor's presentation copy to John Masefield, inscribed "To John Masefield / with the editor's compliments / PHB Lyon." Masefield bookplate on front pastedown. A fine copy with boards very fresh.
Contains Auden's first appearance in print, the sixteen line poem "Woods in Rain". Auden's name is misspelt listed in the index and above the poem as "W.H. Arden". Masefield who had recently been awarded an honorary doctorate by Oxford, and was shortly to become Poet Laureate, was a natural recipient of such an anthology. It would have been Masefield's first exposure to the poetry of Auden, a man he came to much admire and whose cause he championed. It was largely due to Masefield in his capacity as Poet Laureate, that Auden was awarded the 1937 King's Gold Medal for Poetry, and Masefield later described Auden as "a man of genius... a dynamic person."
Stock ID: 17150
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