Stephen Spender Books

Stephen Spender and David Hockney's illustrated diary of the trip they took together to China takes in not just the famous sites - the Great Wall, the Temple of the jade Buddha, the magical landscape of Kweilin but the unexpected incidents of everyday Chinese life. And both discuss their meetings with contemporary Chinese poets and painters. Hockney's photographs, drawings and watercolours are a unique revelation of China, while Spender discourses in rich prose. Together they provide a glimpse of this ever-mysterious land.

This novel by the young Stephen Spender was written as an experiment in 1930 but abandoned in draft and forgotten until rediscovered by a researcher. Believed to be autobiographical, it tells the story of a young English poet on vacation in Hamburg in 1929 and his response to the Weimar world.

Virtually from its first appearance in 1951, this book was considered one of the most illuminating literary autobiographies to have come out of the 1930s and 40s. In writing it the author was concerned with the themes of love, poetry, politics, the life of literature, childhood, travel and the development of certain attitudes towards moral problems. He relates these personal themes to the background of public and private events in this period of his life. This book provides an intimate and deeply felt commentary on the relationship between literature and politics in England and Germany during these years. In the course of the book there are portraits of Virginia Woolf, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Lady Ottoline Morrell, W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and others.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Recognized for its cultural significance, this work contributes to the foundational knowledge of civilization. It has been selected by scholars for its importance and relevance to understanding historical and societal contexts.

Letters from the poet to the novelist discuss Spender's work, travel experiences, meetings with other literary figures, emotional problems, and opinions on literature

For the revised and enlarged edition of his collected poems - reissued to celebrate his 80th birthday - Stephen Spender has made considerable changes from the text of the original edition of 1955. He has included a number of recent and unpublished poems, discarded several others and recast and rewritten much of the work in the earlier collection.