AUDEN, W.H.
Epistle To A Godson & Other Poems.
First Edition of Epistle To A Godson & Other Poems; Lengthily inscribed by W.H. Auden with a poem from the collection
London: Faber and Faber, 1972.
$4,500.00
In Stock
Item Number: RRB-147647
* Custom Clamshell Boxes are hand made by the Harcourt Bindery upon request and take approximately 60 days to complete
First edition of this classic collection of poems. Octavo, original half cloth. Inscribed by W.H. Auden on the front free endpaper with the first three stanzas of "Doggerel by a Senior Citizen" which reads in full: "Our earth in 1969 / Is not the planet I call mine, / The words, I mean, that gives me strength / To hold off chaos at arm's length. / My Eden landscapes and their climes / Are constructs from Edwardian times, / When bathrooms took up lots of space, / And, before eating, one said Grace. / The automobile, the aeroplane / Are useful gadgets but profane: / The enquiry of which I dream / Is moved by water or by steam." Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Housed in a custom half morocco folding case. Accompanied by newspaper clippings of the author and the original mailing envelope addressed entirely in the author's hand to "Reginald Addyes-Scott." Ownership plate of William A. Strutz to the front pastedown. Rare and desirable as Auden passed away a year after publication.
Epistle to a Godson was the last book of poems that Auden completed in his lifetime; its successor, Thank You, Fog was left unfinished at his death. The poems included in the book were written mostly in 1968–1971. They include, in addition to the title poem, "Natural Linguistics", "Doggerel by a Senior Citizen", "Old People's Home", "Talking to Dogs", "Talking to Mice", and "Talking to Myself".
The titular poem, first published in 1969 in the New York Review of Books, is dedicated to Philip Spender, while the book as a whole is dedicated to Orlan Fox, "whom Auden had first met as an undergraduate at Columbia University in 1959."
Epistle To A Godson & Other Poems.
$4,500.00
In Stock
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