"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