PLAYS AND OTHER DRAMATIC WRITINGS BY W. H. AUDEN, 1928–1938

First UK edition, first printing. Original red cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dustwrapper. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout, without marks or spotting. Offsetting to endpapers. In the bright dustwrapper, showing a little edge-wear, which has been clipped and re-priced by the publisher (£40.00 to a Faber sticker). A nice copy.

This volume, the first to be published in Edward Mendelson's monumental – and recently completed – Complete Auden edition, contains all the poet's early dramatic pieces, his 1930s collaborations with Christopher Isherwood ('The Dog Beneath the Skin', 'The Ascent of F6' and 'On the Frontier') and a previously unpublished play by the pair. The volume also prints the prose and verse written for documentary films, a cabaret sketch, and an unpublished radio script. Mendelson provides extensive historical, textual and biographical notes and an introduction.