WILSON, Robert A. (1922–2016)

Auden's Library. New York: Robert A. Wilson / Phoenix Book Shop, 1975.

Details

First edition, one of 300 copies, issued privately as a Phoenix Book Shop holiday greeting and not for sale. Wilson's pamphlet recounts his acquisition of books from W. H. Auden's New York library before Auden left New York, and includes a facsimile of a brief holograph note by Auden. This copy is preserved with a typed letter signed by Wilson on Phoenix Book Shop letterhead, written to the literary critic John Whitehead, in which Wilson explains that he drafted Auden's Library only "a few days after acquiring the library, as a sort of bibliographic record."

The object belongs to the moment when Auden's working library passed from the poet's rooms into the evidentiary world of booksellers, collectors, and archives. The pamphlet records Wilson's acquisition; the accompanying signed letter records Wilson's own immediate explanation of why he made the pamphlet and how he understood the Auden material.

Small 12mo. Original blue stiff card wrappers, title printed in black on the front cover. 8 pages, with 4 unnumbered preliminary pages. Together with a typed letter signed by Robert A. Wilson to John Whitehead, and a contemporary unused envelope associated with the letter.

The letter is the copy's principal distinction. Wilson writes not to a casual recipient, but to John Whitehead, a critic closely engaged with Auden and the Auden generation. Wilson thanks Whitehead for his remarks on the Auden pamphlet and gives the work's origin: a near-immediate bibliographical record, later polished for Christmas distribution. He then looks forward to a possible series, mentioning Marianne Moore as a subject for the following year.

The rest of the letter sharpens the modern-literary context. Wilson refers to an advance page from a forthcoming catalogue of Isherwood material, comments on British public-school terminology, and notes that Auden discarded presentation copies from Edith Sitwell and, to Wilson's surprise, Stephen Spender. The names are not incidental: Isherwood belongs to Auden's early Anglo-American history; Moore was another major modern poet in Wilson's orbit; Sitwell and Spender reveal the library as a social and literary document, recording what Auden received, used, retained, and let go.

Wilson's own standing gives the group its authority. The Phoenix Book Shop in Greenwich Village was later described as a sanctuary for new poetry and an important trading post for first editions. Wilson was not only a bookseller but a bibliographer, publisher, collector, and maker of literary archives. Read together, the pamphlet and letter form a compact document of Auden's library after Auden: printed keepsake, bookseller's record, and signed correspondence in one associated group.

Literature

Wilson, Robert A. Auden's Library. New York: Robert A. Wilson / Phoenix Book Shop, 1975. Princeton University Library, Graphic Arts Collection, "Robert A. Wilson and the Phoenix Bookshop." University of Delaware Library, Special Collections, Robert A. Wilson collection and Robert A. Wilson W. H. Auden collection. Johns Hopkins University Libraries, Robert Wilson papers; Johns Hopkins Hub, "Book collector, Johns Hopkins alum Robert Wilson dies at 94."

Provenance

Typed letter signed by Robert A. Wilson to John Whitehead, preserved with the pamphlet. Whitehead's relevance is literary rather than merely personal: his later critical work included sustained commentary on W. H. Auden, C. Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender, the same literary constellation evoked in Wilson's letter.

Condition

Pamphlet near fine in original blue stiff card wrappers: wrappers sound and retaining strong original colour, thin spine lightly sunned, text clean, fresh, complete, and unmarked. Typed letter signed by Robert A. Wilson very good: clean and unmarked, folded as preserved, with two horizontal folds and one vertical fold at the left edge; signed in ink. Contemporary unused envelope associated with the letter included, without address or postal markings.

A limited Phoenix Book Shop Auden keepsake, preserved with Wilson's signed letter explaining its origin as an immediate bibliographical record of Auden's library.