To be frank, I am not very interested in Auden's poetry, but I am interested in the man, and although I also have the Auden biography by Humphrey Carpenter, I bought this book as it seems to contain so much biographical information.

I am also more interested in the young Auden than the early Auden, and of course the group of friends at the time of their budding friendship. It was entirely serendipitous that I was reading Christopher Isherwood's Lions & Shadows. An education in the Twenties, which is also mentioned, at almost the same time. As these two books cover about the same periods, the Twenties.

Edward Mendelson's Early Auden cover the period up to 1938, which biographically is the most interesting period and covers some of his travels to China and their stay in Germany, where he watched the rise of fascism. This period between schooling and the outbreak of the war is also the period of discovering his homosexuality and the development of life-long friendships with Isherwood and other writers and thinkers of the period.

Mendelson gives in-depth psychological explanations for the development and maturing of Auden's poetry, with many excerpts to illustrate. The book can be read as a biography of the young Auden, with a lot of attention given to his poetry.

Very well-written and very well done. ( )