The Complete Works of W.H. Auden

Edward Mendelson, Editor

This projected eight-volume edition is intended to serve as the definitive text for all the works Auden published or intended to publish in the form in which he expected to see them printed: his plays and other drama, libretti, essays and reviews, and poems. The series provides a unique opportunity to solve the numerous textual problems connected with the severe revisions Auden made in his own works.

The texts are newly edited from Auden's manuscripts by Edward Mendelson, the literary executor of the Auden estate. As presented in this edition, they are absolutely clean, with the notes appearing only at the ends of the volumes, along with variant readings from all published versions, as well as hitherto unpublished drafts or revisions.

The volumes will appear at a rate of approximately one a year. The first volume of the series contains plays and other drama, and the second volume includes the libretti. The essays and reviews appear in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes, and the seventh and eighth volumes will contain the poems.

See also: W.H. Auden: Critical Editions