W. H. AUDEN FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : Faber & Faber, (1930). First edition : [one of 1,000 copies]. Auden's first regularly published book - a collection of thirty poems, including "Which of you waking early", "This lunar beauty", "On Sunday walks", etc. Also included is his first play, "Paid on Both Sides".
Foolscap 4to (193 x 138mm). (80)pp. Bound in a stylish recent full blue morocco, banded and gilt; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers; some occasional small spots to text, but overall a very good copy - most attractively bound. Bloomfield A2a.

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London : Faber & Faber, (1933). First edition : [one of 1,200 copies]. "We present to you this evening a picture of the decline of a class, of how its members dream of a new life, but secretly desire the old, for there is death inside them ...".
Demy 8vo. (38),[ii]pp. Original green boards, lettered on upper cover and spine in black; very lightly rubbed at foot; a few faint marks; endpapers a little tanned, but a very good copy of a fragile early Auden, in the original dust-jacket - a typographic design in black and red on bright green - very faintly rubbed and just slightly nicked, but very good indeed. Bloomfield & Mendelson A4.

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London : Faber & Faber, (1935). First edition: [one of 2,000 copies].
Demy 8vo. 180pp. Original red cloth, lettered down spine in blue; a touch dulled; tiny split to lower hinge; some spotting of endpapers and edges, but a good copy. From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer. Bloomfield & Mendelson A9a.

£25

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London : Faber & Faber, (1936). First edition : [one of 2,350 copies]. An early collection of thirty-one poems. "Faber invented a bloody title while I was away without telling me. It sounds like the work of a vegetarian lady novelist" - later published in the USA under Auden's preferred title of "On this Island".
Demy 8vo. 68pp. Original light grey cloth, lettered down spine in gilt; light spotting of edges and endpapers, but a very good copy in a lightly worn dust-jacket - sunned at spine. Neat ownership inscription simply noting "Cluff". Bloomfield & Mendelson A13a.

£200

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London : Faber & Faber, (1938). First edition. A play in prose and verse - intrigue and conflict between two imaginary neighbouring countries, with pronounced echoes of contemporary politics.
Demy 8vo. (124),[iv]pp. Original red cloth, lettered down spine in gilt; a few slight spots, but a very good and bright copy in a very lightly rubbed and slightly chipped dust-jacket. Bloomfield A18a.

£125

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London : Faber & Faber, (1940). First British edition : [one of 2,000 copies]. One of the finest and most celebrated collections of poetry of the twentieth century, including the first appearance in book form of "Lay your sleeping head, my love", "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Spain 1937", "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "September 1, 1939", "Funeral Blues", etc. "Certainly his best collection of poems ... Auden was for many of us the last poet we learnt by heart" (Cyril Connolly).
Demy 8vo (223 x 140mm). (126),[ii]pp. Bound in a smart recent half red morocco, banded and gilt; original cloth backstrip preserved at rear; just as hint of tanning here and there, but a very good copy - most attractively bound. Bloomfield & Mendelson A22b. Connolly (Modern Movement) 90.

£400

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London : Faber & Faber, (1941). First British edition : [one of 2,000 copies]. Auden's long wartime philosophical poem, together with notes in verse and prose, an absorbing collection of quotations from other authors, a sonnet sequence of twenty poems, and a verse epilogue. Originally published in New York a few weeks earlier, with minor variations, as "The Double Man". The notes in the London edition are often more extensive.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 188,[iv]pp. Original grey cloth, lettered on spine in red; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket - just lightly sunned at spine and with a single tiny nick. Bloomfield A 24b.

£200

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London : Faber & Faber, (1952). First British edition. A collection of thirty-two poems, including "The Love Feat", "The Air Port", "Pleasure Island", "Not in Baedeker" and "A Walk after Dark".
Demy 8vo (23cm). 72pp. Original blue cloth, ruled and lettered across spine in gilt; mild tanning of endpapers, but an excellent copy in the original dust-jacket - a typographic design in blue and black on orange - just lightly used and a little sunned at spine. With the contemporary ownership of Lawrence Wilson, Dublin, 1952. Bloomfield & Mendelson A32b.

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London : Faber & Faber, (1954). First edition. A poem in the New Series of the Ariel Poems.
Demy 8vo. [8]pp. Title-page, colour lithograph, and tailpiece by Edward Bawden. Original self-wrappers, printed black on pale yellow; a fine copy in the original pink envelope - itself near fine. Bloomfield & Mendelson A34.

£25

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[Oxford : Oxford University Press], 1958. First edition: [one of 1,500 copies]. The Latin and English texts of Auden's June 1958 formal oration as Professor of Poetry at Oxford.
Demy 8vo. (24)pp. Original white stapled self-wraps, printed in black; staples just slightly rusted, but a very good copy. Together with a photocopy of the similar 1956 publication (G25). From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer. Bloomfield & Mendelson G26.

£50

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[Oxford : Oxford University Press], 1960. First edition: [one of 1,500 copies]. The Latin and English texts of Auden's June 1960 formal oration as Professor of Poetry at Oxford.
Demy 8vo. (16)pp. Original white stapled self-wraps, printed in black; staples a little rusted, but otherwise a very good copy. From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer. Bloomfield & Mendelson G27.

£40

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New York : Steuben Glass, (1963). First edition. An exhibition was held in 1963 marrying together thirty-one new poems with interpretations of them in crystal by the leading artists and designers in glass of the period. The present work forms a record of the exhibition and the first publication of the poems. The poets include Conrad Aiken, W.H.Auden, Jean Garrigue, Donald Hall, Robinson Jeffers, Denise Levertov, Marianne Moore, Kenneth Rexroth, Theodore Roethke, Delmore Schwartz, Karl Shapiro, W.D.Snodgrass, Mark van Doren, Richard Wilbur, William Carlos Williams, etc. The artists include Lloyd Atkins, Clare Leighton, Donald Pollard, George Thompson, Don Wier, etc.
Post 4to. Plates. Original cloth; the slightest hint of a bruise at foot of spine, but a near fine copy in the original glassine jacket, rather battered and slightly chipped. Loosely inserted is the explanatory leaflet for the exhibition. From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer. Bloomfield & Mendelson B82.

£25

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Darmstadt : J.G.Bläschke Verlag, (1964). First edition: [one of 1,500 copies] - the secondary binding in pink (rather than grey) wraps. Two Auden poems. A parallel English/German text edition, with the German translations by Dieter Leisegang.
Demy 8vo. [24]pp. Frontispiece. Original light pink wraps, printed on upper wrap in black; just a touch sunned, but a very good copy. From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer. Bloomfield & Mendelson A48.

£25

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Darmstadt : J.G.Bläschke Verlag, (1965). First edition: [one of 1,500 copies]. Two Auden poems - including one in memory of Louis MacNeice. A parallel English/German text edition, with the German translations by Dieter Leisegang.
Demy 8vo. [24]pp. Frontispiece. Original pale yellow stiffened wraps, printed on upper wrap in black; a few very faint marks, but a very good copy. From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer. Bloomfield & Mendelson A50.

£30

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London : Oxford University Press, (1966). First edition. The sheet music for Walton's "Anthem for the Feast of any Apostle", first performed at Oxford in 1965, together with Auden's words.
Royal 8vo. [ii],30pp. Original brown and pale yellow stapled wraps; a very good copy. From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer. Bloomfield & Mendelson B97.

£40

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Salzburg : Festungsverlag Salzburg, (1968). First edition: [one of 2,000 copies]. Auden's Words and Notes in German, English and French.
Foolscap 4to. [ii],(58)pp. Original white wraps, printed in tan and grey; very good in dust-jacket. A duplicate from the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer. Bloomfield & Mendelson A60.

£35

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New York : Tetra Music Corporation, (1972). First edition. A poem by Auden, with music by Pablo Casals.
Crown 4to. (16)pp - wraps included in pagination. Original white stapled wraps, printed in pale blue; near fine. From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer.

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London : Faber & Faber, (1974). First edition. A posthumous collection of nineteen poems and an antimasque, including "Aubade", "Nocturne" and "Recitative by Death".
Demy 8vo (23cm). [ii],(58),[iv]pp. Original cloth-backed boards, in two shades of blue, lettered down spine in gilt; the palest of spotting to top edge, but otherwise fine in a fine dust-jacket.

£25

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New Haven : Jonathan Edwards College Press, 1974. First separate edition: limited to 100 numbered copies. Auden's 1972 poem for E.R.Dodds - "Do squamous and squiggling fish ...", here handsomely printed in broadside form in honour of the poet's sixty-seventh birthday.
Single ivory Strathmore Artlaid sheet, printed in black and silver-grey. 51 x 33cm. Single manuscript correction. Very mild creasing from having been rolled too long and too tight, but otherwise in very good state. A duplicate from the collection of the late B. C. Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer.

£50

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London : Faber Music / Faber & Faber, (1976). First edition. The 1941 Auden libretto to the Benjamin Britten operetta.
Crown 8vo. [iv],(40)pp. Original pale green stapled wraps, printed on upper wrap in black and blue; very mildly creased in production, but a very good copy indeed. A duplicate from the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer.

£20

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London : English Music Theatre Company, [1976]. First edition. The programme for the 1976 first European production of the Britten/Auden operetta - including the text of Auden's 1941 New York Times essay "Most myths are poetical history ...".
Demy 8vo. [12]pp. Original white wraps, printed in red and blue; very good.

£10

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Oxford : Sycamore Press, (1977). First edition. A previously unpublished dark and cautionary ballad from the nineteen-thirties. Loosely inserted is an autograph post-card from the publisher, John Fuller, signed "John F.", to the late B.C.Bloomfield (Auden's bibliographer) concerning a 1923 Auden notebook, etc.
Post 8vo. Single white sheet, printed in blue and black, folding to form three leaves; fine.

£40

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London : Faber & Faber, (1988). First hardback edition. First published in wraps in 1976, but here with Auden's 1941 New York Times article and a long essay by Donald Mitchell, including excerpts from the original correspondence, etc.
Post 8vo. viii,150,[ii]pp. Portrait frontispiece. Original pale grey boards, ruled and lettered on spine in red; very good indeed in the original black, grey and white dust-jacket, with an illustration in red, green on upper panel. From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer.

£20

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Princeton : Princeton University Press, (1994). First edition. A collection of over 200 early poems, most previously unpublished, with full biographical and critical notes. Edited by Katherine Bucknell.
Medium 8vo. lxxii,(264)pp. Original grey cloth, blocked in purple and ruled and lettered in gilt across spine; two corners just lightly bruised, but a very good copy in the original purple and black and white dust-jacket - similarly lightly bruised. From the collection of the late B. C. Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer, and with a related press-cutting loosely inserted.

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