About The House
London: Faber and Faber, 1966. Octavo, original blue cloth with gilt lettering, bright original unclipped dust jacket with small spot of rubbing to top left corner of front panel, light rubbing to back panel. Original errata slip tipped in. Item #100147
First English edition, preceded by the American edition the previous year. Auden divides his collection into two parts. In "Thanksgiving for a Habitat," he celebrates the Austrian farmhouse he shared with his companion Chester Kallman, "a magic Eden without clocks," and meditates on the experience of being at home. A more loosely connected group of poems, many occasional, "In and Out" includes the memorable "At the Party": "Unrhymed, unrhythmical, the chatter goes: / Yet no one hears his own remarks as prose." A near-fine copy.
Price: $95.00