''The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays'' is a collection of
essay
An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...
s and
lecture
A lecture (from ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history, background, theo ...
s by
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, ...
, published in 1962 in the US by
Random House
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
and in the UK the following year by
Faber & Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...
.
Overview
The book contains a selection of essays, reviews, and collections of aphorisms and notes written by Auden from the early 1950s to 1962. Many items were not previously published, but others appear in revised forms. Many of the essays are revised versions of Auden's lectures as
Professor of Poetry
The Professor of Poetry is an academic appointment at the University of Oxford. The chair was created in 1708 by an endowment from the estate of Henry Birkhead. The professorship carries an obligation to deliver an inaugural lecture; give one p ...
at the
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
from 1956 to 1961, including his inaugural lecture, "Making, Knowing and Judging".
Dedicatee
The book is dedicated to Auden's tutor at Oxford,
Nevill Coghill
Nevill Henry Kendal Aylmer Coghill (19 April 1899 – 6 November 1980) was an Anglo-Irish literary scholar, known especially for his modern-English version of Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales''. He was an associate of the literary discuss ...
.
[W. H. Auden, ''The Dyers Hand And Other Essays'' (1948)]
Dedication page
Contents
1. Prologue
* "Reading"
* "Writing"
2. The Dyer's Hand
* "Making, Knowing and Judging"
* "The Virgin and the Dynamo"
* "The Poet and the City"
3. The Well of Narcissus
* "Hic et Ille"
* "Balaam and His Ass"
* "The Guilty Vicarage"
* "The I Without a Self"
4. The Shakespearian City
* "The Globe"
* "The Prince's Dog"
* "Interlude: The Wish Game"
* "Brothers & Others"
* "Interlude: West's Disease"
* "The Joker in the Pack"
* "Postscript: Infernal Science"
5. Two Bestiaries
* "D. H. Lawrence"
* "Marianne Moore"
6. Americana
* "The American Scene"
* "Postcript: Rome v. Monticello"
* "Red Ribbon on a White Horse"
* "Postscript: The Almighty Dollar"
* "Robert Frost"
* "American Poetry"
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dyer's Hand. The
1962 books
Dyer's Hand
Random House books
Books of aphorisms