News items:
W. H. Auden's Prose, Volume III, 1949-1955, was published in February 2008. It may be purchased from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
The Society's Newsletter 29 was mailed to members in North America on 28 December 2007 and to members in the rest of the world on 9 January 2008. If you have not received your copy by mid-January 2008, kindly send an e-mail to the webmaster using the link at the foot of this page. If you neglected to supply a postal address with your membership, kindly use the same e-mail link to supply an address at the earliest possible opportunity (please write from the same e-mail address that you used when joining the Society).
News that wasn't: The London newspaper The Independent splashed across its front page on 5 September 2007 the news that three "lost" schoolboy poems by Auden had been rediscovered. These three unsigned poems were in fact known to researchers for many decades, and there seem to be no convincing reason to believe that Auden wrote any of them. It is of course not impossible that Auden was the author, but they could equally well have been written by almost any literate schoolboy of the period. Katherine Bucknell, the editor of Auden's Juvenilia, has argued in the Society's Newsletter that one of the poems was written by Auden's friend Robert Medley. Probably no one will ever know who actually wrote these poems, and, as Auden wrote in "Archaeology," "guessing is always / more fun than knowing."
Family Ghosts is a new genealogical web site devoted to W. H. Auden; it provides new insights into the place of Auden's family in English history and society. Nicholas Jenkins' commentary on the site is an essential introduction to its resources.
A highly accurate, thoroughly revised version of the Wikipedia.org entry on Auden was first posted in 2007. This site strongly recommends that online researchers make reference to the archived version of the page, in the link above, rather than to current versions, which may be less accurate or may be subject to vandalism.
The W. H. Auden Society commemorates the life and work of one of the greatest poets in the English language.
This web site offers a list of books by Wystan Hugh Auden, links to some of his poems, a selective list of recordings of his readings and of musical settings of his poems, and (to be added in the near future) a biography. Recent news of publications and events of interest to Auden's readers, reports of work in progress, and brief scholarly and interpretive notes may also be found here. Visitors seeking further information can find selective lists of published criticism and biography, links to other web sites, and the archives of the Society's Newsletter. You may search the contents of this site.
A page of frequently asked questions contains information about the poems by Auden quoted in Tuesdays with Morrie (“September 1, 1939”) and in Four Weddings and a Funeral (“Stop all the clocks...”).
Information is available about membership in the W. H. Auden Society and its officers, and a list of contacts is provided for authors and publishers seeking copyright permission to quote, reprint, or translate Auden's works. A map of this site is provided.
You may join the Society on-line using a credit card and a web-based transaction service. Details may be found on the membership page.
Following the ratification of its Constitution in May 2004, the Society is now registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales as Charity No. 1104496. The W. H. Auden Society is registered as a not-for-profit corporation in the State of New York.
All works by Auden quoted on this site are copyright by the Estate of W. H. Auden and used with the permission of the Estate.
Web-Master 02 April 2008