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W. H. Auden's Poems of 1928 Une Saison en enfer for many years—he donated 22 Zweig, Erinnerungen an Emile Verhaeren a copy to the Bibliotheque nationale in 1938. A (Vienna, 1917). All references are to the French copy he gave to Jules Mouquet was purchased edition Souvenirs sur Emile Verhaeren (Brussels, by the British Library in 1982 (C.i29.m.i3.). This copy has two interlaced Ls stamped in the 23 Zweig, ibid., p. 76. upper blank margin of the front wrapper and 24 See Zweig's contribution in La nervie, numero below the last line of text; on the first page it special consacre a Louis Pierard, 1930, i, pp. has the inscription 'A Monsieur Jules Mouquet, 20-21. See also Trois cent trente-deux lettres a l'editeur des Vers de college d'Arthur Rimbaud' Louis Pierard, precedees de Memoires exterieurs (Mouquet's edition was published in 1933). It par Marianne Pierson-Pierard, Lettres modernes, is in a fine binding by Rose Adler, signed and Avant-siecle, 11 (Paris, 1971), p. 16. dated 1948. Reproduced in Martin Breslauer, 25 Louis Pierard, 'Le Wallon a l'Orange', La Societe Fine Bindings Catalogue 104, part II, (1981), nouvelle, i4e annee, tom. ii (2e serie, vol. xxx, col. pi. xiii. oct.-dec. 1908), p. 81. The German premiere of 17 Bulletin, i, ler fasc. (1908), p. [3]. Helene de Sparte {Helena's Heimkehr), in Zweig's 18 Revue de Belgique, Annee 37 (Oct. 1905), pp. translation, was given on 13 October 1910, at 105-11. the Stuttgarter Hoftheater, nearly two years 19 Robert Dumont, Stefan Zweig et la France before its Paris premiere, on 4 May 1912, at the (Paris, 1967), pp. 31-88, discusses the friendship Chatelet. between the two men, Verhaeren's influence on 26 Zweig, Souvenirs sur Emile Verhaeren, p. 137. Zweig and Zweig's writings on the poet. See 27 Stefan Zweig, Paul Verlaine. Die Dichtung, Eine also D. A. Prater, European of yesterday: a Sammlung von Monographien, vol. xxx (Berlin- biography of Stefan Zweig (Oxford, 1972), pp. Leipzig, 1905). All references are taken from the 22-98 passim. English edition, Paul Verlaine (Boston, Dublin 20 Zweig was deeply hurt by Verhaeren's expression & London, 1913), where 'The Rimbaud Episode' of bitter anti-German feelings in works such as is on pp. 38-50. La Belgique sanglante and Les Ailes rouges de la 28 Arthur Rimbaud, Gedichte [tr. from the French guerre, written after the German invasion of by K. L. Ammer {pseud, of Karl Klammer)], Belgium. (Leipzig, 1907). 21 For a list of Zweig's translations of Verhaeren's 29 Zweig, Verlaine (1913), p. 49, note. Berrichon's works see Randolph J. Klawiter, Stefan Zweig: Lettres de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud was published a bibliography. University of North Carolina in 1899. Studies in the Germanic Languages and Litera- 30 Zweig, ibid., p. 41: 'he never had a single line tures, no. 50 (Chapel Hill, 1965), pp. 70-71. In printed by his own efforts, he was utterly 1912, Zweig also organized Verhaeren's highly regardless ofthe fleeting examples of his gigantic successful lecture tour in Hamburg, Berlin, power'. Vienna and Munich. See Prater, European of 31 Pierson-Pierard, op. cit., p. 346. Yesterday, pp. 42-4. W. H. AUDEN'S POEMS OF 1928 Joanna Leevers IN April 1987 the Modern British Section summer vacation. It is a surprisingly small of the British Library acquired a rare and volume measuring only 12 x 95 cm., bound in important copy of W. H. Auden's Poems of limp orange covers; the title-page reads: W. 1928. This was Auden's first published work, H. AUDEN [long rule] POEMS [short rule] privately printed by his fellow poet and under- S.H.S.: 1928. Its pagination is pp. [i-iv, 1-2] graduate Stephen Spender during the Oxford 3-37 [38-40]^ and a printed erratum slip is 203 loosely inserted between pp. 6 and 7. The Isherwood in a Soho restaurant in 1927. Fol- British Library copy, press-mark C.i9O.aa.24., lowing this meeting, Auden wrote to Upward has manuscript alterations by Auden himself. several times enclosing poems for him to Though it is stated on page two that 'About 45 comment on, and in return Upward sent Auden copies' were produced. Spender later admitted a copy of his short story The Railway Accident. that thirty was a more realistic figure,^ The The importance of the literary discussions and book has since become, in the words of Chris- correspondence between Auden, Upward and topher Isherwood, 'a bibliophile's prize'.-^ Isherwood is alluded to in Auden's letter to Owing to its scarcity, this edition of Auden's Upward which accompanied this copy of the earliest poems has received httle attention from Poems. He acknowledges half-jokingly 'I shall critics, yet it is a seminal work by one of the never know how much in these poems is filched twentieth century's most influential and prolific from you via Christopher'.* In years to come poets. It contains work written before Auden Upward was to exert a more direct political went to Berlin and wrote most of the material influence on Auden. for the edition of Poems published by Faber Spender began printing Poems, together with & Faber in 1930. Some of the poems were his own Nine Experiments, at his parents' house never republished, but nevertheless played an at 10 Frognal, in Hampstead. The British important part in Auden's poetic development. Library only has the 1964 facsimile of Nine Experiments, which has a foreword by Spender explaining that he 'later retrieved and destroyed as many copies of Nine Experiments as possible. Thus it is probably rarer than the Auden -About 45 copies. Poems, though not nearly as remarkable, for the latter contains some work that even today counts among his most interesting, and unlike my pamphlet, it is nothing to be ashamed of At first Auden's Poems was hand-printed with a primitive 'Adana printing set price £-] for Fig. I. Verso of title page chemists' labels';^ however, when Spender's patience and the machine broke down, he took it to be completed and bound at the Holywell Press in Oxford. The original copy was supplied in both handwritten and typewritten form by Until now, the British Library has held only A. S. T. Fisher, and Auden himself. Auden facsimiles ofthe 1928 Poems, reproduced from copiesbelongingtoMr John Johnson (no. 12), continued to send Spender copy whilst he Durham University Library (no. 24), and the was setting up the poems. The compositor's University ofCincinnati Library (no. 17). The mistakes and uneven printing that resulted copy recently acquired is no. 9 (fig. i), and was from this rather haphazard method of publi- originally presented by Auden to the novelist cation add a certain character to the finished Edward Upward. Only close friends and rela- product. As in other copies, the inking on tives were given copies of the book, and this pp. 3 and 18 is particularly uneven, and the copy had until now remained unrecorded.^ It numbers of pages 18 and 20 are miss-set so is signed by both Auden and Upward, and that they appear in the gutter instead of the its provenance stands as a testimony of the fore-edge of the page. The printing noticeably enduring friendship between the two writers, improves from p. 23 onwards; this was the They were first introduced by Christopher point at which the Holywell Press took over. 204 Just as Auden continued to send Spender it into a new poem. In this way whole poems were poems once printing had begun, he continued constructed which were simply anthologies of my favourite lines, entirely regardless of grammar or the process of addition and deletion after all the copies were printed. In the facsimile copies sense . to which I have had access these alterations Perhaps crediting Auden with rather more are inserted by Spender; the British Library's artistic integrity, Stephen Spender corrobor- copy, however, has only a few minor alterations ates: in Spender's hand, the remainder being by ... he was not shocked at the idea of tacking lines Auden. This copy may well be unique in this from a rejected poem onto a new one—as though a respect. poem were not a single experience but a mosaic held The book is therefore not simply the product together by the consistency of an atmosphere, a of an important publishing project, but an rhythm or an idea common to all its parts. example of an aspect of the creative process Thus 'the earlier poems are often made up of which Auden was often at pains to emphasise. scraps of still earlier ones','° and these hnes He was a perfectionist and a firm believer in are again recycled in later works. Poem II, 'On Valery's dictum: 'A poem is never finished, the frontier at dawn getting down', appears in only abandoned', to which he adds 'Yes, but its entirety only in this book, but its opening it must not be abandoned too soon'.^ He was line was re-used four years later in The Orators. never satisfied, and his poems went through Only nine of the original twenty poems are endless stages of revision. Such linguistic 'tin- reprinted in the 1930 Faber & Faber edition. kering' (as he termed it) is particularly signifi- Some have been revised, and the final four cant at this early stage of his career, for he was poems are reworked into the charade 'Paid on about to emerge as a leading voice for the both sides'. In the 1932 edition a further five writers of the 1930s; Stephen Spender has were cut.
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