SEPTEMBER 1, 1939: A Biography of a Poem. By Ian Sansom. Harper. 341 pages. $27.99. The subtitle for Ian Samson’s book “September 1, 1939: A Biography of a Poem,” is such an unexpected combination of ...

TS Eliot’s life and influences are meticulously investigated in this impressive account of artistic creation A century ago, a man with a double life published one of the most celebrated, anthologised ...

It’s not Auden’s best poem or (since “Funeral Blues” appeared in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral) his most famous. It’s not even one he cared for: “The most dishonest poem I have ever written” he ...

Sitting in a bar on 52nd Street, WH Auden read in the “folded lie” of a newspaper about the accession of Danzig to the Third Reich. The poem he would write about the events of that night is the ...

Hollis brilliantly sifts through the tendrils of TS Eliot’s unhappiness and shows how, with help from friends, he broke through his tortured silence to create an era-defining poem Even if you flinch ...

This biography is of an epic poem written in blank verse and first published in London in July 1879. On its release, it immediately took England by storm, and soon thereafter America and Europe too ...