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Auction: 313 - Numismatic Collector's Series - Ft. Worth, TX
Lot: 1470

Literary: Wystan Hugh Auden English-American poet and author (1907-73); considered by many the greatest English-language poet of the 20th century. Great work content Typewritten Letter Signed "WH Auden, 1 page, 8vo, on stationery imprinted with his address, Kirchstetten, Austria, August 31, 1962. He writes Kateri Concannon of Middletown, RI, "Ever since I first read [19th-century English poet Gerard Manley] Hopkins when I was an undergraduate at Oxford, I have greatly admired his work...Some early poems of mine were certainly influenced by him...Hopkins is one of those very eccentric poets by whom it is dangerous to let oneself be DIRECTLY and CONSCIOUSLY influenced...The only poem of mine still in print which does...show his influence is an Ode in THE ORATORS about a school football match, and even in this, I think the most important influence is [ancient Greek poet] Pindar...Hopkins was greatly interested in...Welsh poetry, and so, for the last ten years have I been..." He adds in an Autograph Postscript that he will not write Miss Concannon´s instructor, but she may quote his letter. With original typed air mail envelope. Folds, VG.

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$270