{"product_id":"the-complete-works-of-wh-auden-plays-and-other-dramatic-writings-19281938","title":"The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Plays and Other Dramatic Writings  1928-1938","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1928 Stephen Spender hand-printed thirty copies of a small volume of poems by his friend W. H. Auden--the first published book by a man who was to become the dominant literary figure of his generation and one of the centurys greatest poets. Sixty years later  Princeton University Press inaugurates an eight-volume edition of the complete works of Auden  which 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 Complete Works of W. H. Auden will provide a unique opportunity to solve the numerous textual problems connected with the severe revisions Auden made in his own works. The texts will be newly edited from Audens manuscripts by Edward Mendelson  the literary executor of the Auden estate. As presented in this edition  they will be 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appearing only at the ends of the volumes  along with variant readings from all published versions  as well as hitherto unpublished drafts or revisions. Also included will be introductions placing the works in the context of literary traditions and relating them to Audens life and times.  As planned  the first volume of the series contains plays and other drama  and the second volume will include the libretti. The essays and reviews will appear in the third  fourth  fifth  and sixth volumes  and the seventh and eighth volumes will contain the poems.  Plays and Other Dramatic Writings  1928-1938  This volume contains Auden and Christopher Isherwoods dramatic extravaganzas The Dog Beneath the Skin  The Ascent of F 6  and On the Frontier. It also includes the two versions of Paid on Both Sides--which are so different as to constitute two works--and Audens satiric revue The Dance of Death. Two plays appear in print for the first time  Auden and Isherwoods The Enemies of a Bishop and Audens The Chase. Also included are Audens prose and verse written for documentary films  a cabaret sketch  and an unpublished radio script. Many of the texts include poems by the young Auden that have never been published before. The extensive historical and textual notes trace the complex history of the production and revision of these plays  including full texts of rewritten scenes.  During the years when these works were created  Auden moved from a \"poetry of isolation\" to more expansive and public writing. After he left Oxford at age twenty-one  during the summer of 1928  he wrote the tragicomic charade Paid on Both Sides. During the next ten years  until he left England for America  he created the increasingly ambitious works for stage  film  and broadcast that appear in this volume. The most important of these plays were written in collaboration with Isherwood. As the world political situation worsened  Isherwood and Audens style combined the energy of popular entertainment with the urgency of sacramental ritual.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44964717297717,"sku":"ByrdShop_0691067406","price":32.58,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780691067407.jpg?v=1770476598","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-complete-works-of-wh-auden-plays-and-other-dramatic-writings-19281938","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}