London: Faber, 1951
8vo, pp. 126. Original blue boards, lettered in gilt to spine. offsetting to endpapers, otherwise a near fine copy in a very good dustwrapper, irregular sunning to front and rear panels, spine darkened, and with light wear to spine ends.
First UK edition, its US counterpart having appeared nine months earlier.
A collection of lectures delivered by Auden at the University of Virginia in 1949. Using the poetic symbols employed by Wordsworth as a starting point, they make their way to the symbolism of Moby Dick via the work of Coleridge, Baudelaire and Rimbaud. An invaluable crib sheet for undergraduates, if only it were more widely known.