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Who was W.H. Auden? Poet, Adapter, and Librettist. Date and Place of Birth: 21st February 1907, Number 54 Bootham, York, Yorkshire, England. Christened Wystan Hugh Auden. Family Background: Son of a General Practitioner (Doctor)George Augustus Auden and his wife Constance Rosalie Bicknell a former nurse. He was the youngest of three sons. Education: St. Edmund's School, Hindhead Surrey. Gresham's School, Holt, Suffolk. Christchurch College, Oxford. Chronology: 1908: The family moved to Birmingham, England where Auden stayed until he was thirteen developing an interest in urban, industrial scenes. 1915: Went to School in Hindhead, Surrey where he met his lifelong friend Christopher Isherwoood. 1920: He moved to a school in Holt, Norfolk. 1922: A classmate at school suggested that he write poetry and he published his first work in the School magazine. 1925: Went to Oxford to study natural science but soon changed to read English Literature.. His tutor was Neville Coghill who was later to become a renowned medieval English Scholar and translator of Chaucer. Here he met fellow poets Louis McNiece Cecil Day Lewis and Stephen Spender. 1928: Spender produced book of Auden's poems at his own expense with about 45 copies being printed. In his later years at college he was worried by his homosexuality and went through analysis as he felt it was against the principles of Freud whom he had admired and his earlier religious upbringing. At the end of his studies his father offered him the money to spend a year abroad and thus he went off to Berlin. 1929: (March) He was joined in Berlin by Christopher Isherwood who was to write so notably about his experiences there. After his return to England he worked as a private tutor in London. 1930: Began a two year period as a schoolmaster at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland. Meanwhile T.S. Eliot had accepted one of his poems "Paid on Both Sides" to be published in his journal "The Criterion" and arranged for a volume called "Poems" to be published by Faber and Faber, a publishers of which he was an editor. 1932: Started a two year period as a schoolmaster at a school in Colwall, Scotland. 1935. He worked for six months for the General Post Office Film Unit where he collaborated on several projects with the young British composer Benjamin Britten. He also began to write a series of joint works with Christopher Isherwood. 1937: He went on a visit to Spain to observe the Spanish Civil War at first hand and served as an ambulance driver. 1939: In perhaps the most controversial act of his life he an Christopher Isherwood sailed to the United states to set up a new life, Isherwood settling in California whilst Auden went to New York. Auden claimed he wanted to get away from the stultifying inbred nature of the literary world in London, but to many they saw him as fleeing Britain in its hour of peril. 1940: (October) He once again found religion after becoming an atheist whilst at university and became a member of the Anglican Church. He set to to write a series of long poems such as "The Sea and the Mirror" and the "Double Man". He became Associate Professor of Literature at Michigan University. 1946: He took up American Citizenship and also became an editor for the Yale Series of Younger Poets which he was to hold until 1958. 1948: He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry with "The Age of Anxiety" a poem written in Anglo-Saxon measures. 1955: Published "The Shield of Achilles an anthology with the title poem dealing with cruelty. 1956: Becomes Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. 1958: Buys a house in Austria where he was to spend six months in every year writing. Many critics of his poetry of his later years were to say that they were not up to the standards of his earlier work and criticised them for being self-indulgent and having trivial themes but there are still many who admire this work. 1972: He left New York permanently to live in a cottage at Christ Church College, Oxford University, England. 1973: (September 28th) He gave a poetry reading in Vienna and later that night died of heart failure in his hotel bedroom. Written Works: 1930: “Poems”. 1932: “The Orators”. 1933: “The Dance of Death”. 1936: “The Dog beneath the Skin”. (with Isherwood), “Look Stranger”. 1937: “Letters from Iceland”. (with MacNiece), “The Ascent of F6”. (with Isherwood) 1938: “On the Frontier”. (with Isherwood) 1939: "Ballad of Heroes" (A Libretto for Benjamin Britten). 1940: “Another Time”. 1941: “New Year Letter”. 1944: “For the Time Being”. 1948: “The Age of Anxiety”. 1950: “Collected Shorter Poems - 1930-44”. 1951: “Nones”. 1955: “The Shield of Achilles”. 1960: “Homage to Clio”. “Collected Shorter Poems - 1927-57”. 1968: “Collected Longer Poems”. 1969: “City Without Walls”. Marriage: 1935 to Erika Mann, the eldest Daughter of Thomas Mann to allow her a British Passport to escape the NAZIS. Places of Interest: LONDON: Memorial Slab in Westminster Abbey unveiled by Sir John Betjeman, Poet Laureate. Date and Place of Death: 29th September 1973, Kirchstetten, Lower Austria of heart failure. Age at Death: 66. Site of Grave: Churchyard, Kirchstetten, Lower Austria.