Contains various essays and reviews that W H Auden wrote during the years when he was living in England, and also includes the full versions of his two illustrated travel books, "Letters from Iceland" and "Journey to a War". This book is intended not only for Auden's admirers, but those concerned with twentieth-century literature and culture.

Preface Acknowledgements Introduction The Text of This Edition Preface to Oxford Poetry 1926 By W. H. Auden, Charles Plumb Preface to Oxford Poetry 1927 By W. H. Auden, C. Day-Lewis A Review of Instinct and Intuition, by George Binney Dibblee A Review of The Grasshoppers Come, by David Garnett A Review of The Complete Poems of John Skelton A Review of Edda and Saga, by Bertha S. Phillpotts A Review of The Prisoner's Soul - and Our Own, by Eivind Berggrav Writing Private Pleasure Problems of Education A Review of The Evolution of Sex, by Dr Gregorio Maranon, and The Biological Tragedy of Women, by Anton Nemilov Gentleman versus Player A Review of the Dark Places of Education, by Dr Willi Schohaus A Poet Tells Us How to Be Masters of the Machine A Review of Culture and Environment, by F. R. Leavis and Denys Thompson, and Other Books A Review of The Poems of William Dunbar What Is Wrong with Architecture? A Review of The Book of Talbot, by Violet Clifton The First Lord Melchett The Group Movement and the Middle Classes The Liberal Fascist "Honour" "T. E. Lawrence" Life's Old Boy A Review of The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, by Elsie Elizabeth Phare A Review of Modern Poetic Drama, by Priscilla Thouless A Review of English Poetry for Children, by R. L. Megroz In Search of Dracula To Unravel Unhappiness Lowes Dickinson John Skelton Psychology and Art To-day Introduction to The Poet's Tongue By W. H. Auden, John Garrett The Good Life Everyman's Freedom The Bond and the Free "From the Series "I Want the Theatre to Be..." A Review of Documentary Film, by Paul Rotha Psychology and Criticism A Review of Questions of Our Day, by Havelock Ellis Selling the Group Theatre Honest Doubt "Robert Frost" Pope A Review of The Book of Margery Kempe A Modern Use of Masks: An Apologia Are You Dissatisfied with This Performance? The Average Man Four Stories of Crime Poetry, Poets, and Taste Adventures in the Air A Novelist's Poems Crime Tales and Puzzles Letters from Iceland By W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice Impressions of Valencia Royal Poets A Review of Illusion and Reality, by Christopher Caudwell "From Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War" Preface to the Catalogue of Oil Paintings by Past and Present Members of the Downs School, Colwall Education By W. H. Auden, T. C. Worsley A Good Scout In Defence of Gossip Introduction to The Oxford Book of Light Verse Jehovah Housman and Satan Housman Chinese Diary By W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood Meeting the Japanese By W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood Escales By W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood The Sportsmen: A Parable "Message to the Chinese People" By W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood Men of Thought and Action Ironworks and University Democracy's Reply to the Challenge of Dictators Nonsense Poetry Introduction to Poems of Freedom, edited by John Mulgan Foreword to Poet Venturers: A Collection of Poems Written by Bristol School Boys and Girls "The Noble Savage" A New Short Story Writer The Teaching of English Morality in an Age of Change George Gordon Byron China Journey to a War By W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood App. I. Auden as Anthologist and Editor App. II. Reported Lectures App. III. Auden on the Air App. IV. Public Letters Signed by Auden and Others App. V. Lost and Unwritten Work Textual Notes Index of Titles, First Lines, and Books Reviewed

"A rich mine of reading here for scholars and informed lay readers alike."--Library Journal "Before famously (and more or less permanently) emigrating to New York in 1939, W.H. Auden was not only the foremost English poet of his generation but also a prolific reviewer and essayist whose tastes and political sensibilities dominated the anti-fascist England of the 1930s... this essential volume in a projected complete edition restores the voracious reader and never pedantic critic to the master poet."--Publisher's Weekly "We need Auden again, sacred and profane. As the New Age lunges into the volcano, we could do worse than read the Auden of the '30s, if only to prepare us to understand, and value, the later Audens ... The Complete Works, edited with elegant scruple by Auden's literary executor Edward Mendelson is ... the only way to get at Auden as he happened, year by year, bit by bit, and not as he, or his later biographers, want us to think of him."--Tom D'Evelyn, The Boston Book Review "For anyone interested in 'early Auden' this book is indispensable."--Bernard Knox, The New York Review of Books