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Wystan and Chester : a personal memoir of W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman / by Thekla Clark ; introduction by James Fenton.
LIBRA PR6001.U4 Z637 1996
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Clark, Thekla.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973--Friends and associates.
- Auden, W. H.
- Kallman, Chester, 1921-1975--Friends and associates.
- Kallman, Chester.
- Clark, Thekla--Friends and associates.
- Clark, Thekla.
- Poets, English--20th century--Biography.
- Poets, English.
- Poets, American--20th century--Biography.
- Poets, American.
- Ischia Island (Italy)--Biography.
- Ischia Island (Italy).
- Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973.
- Kallman, Chester, 1921-1975.
- Friendship.
- Italy--Ischia Island.
- Genre:
- Biography.
- Biographies.
- Physical Description:
- xii, 130 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Columbia University Press, 1996.
- Summary:
- The first nuanced, personal portrait of Auden and Kallman's relationship of more than thirty years, Wystan and Chester opens a window on a central aspect of Auden's life that has been overlooked by most biographies and critical studies. In a series of witty, poignant, and occasionally disturbing vignettes, Clark recounts the artists at work and at play: the raucous, Bacchanalian dinner parties on Ischia and the quiet mornings of writing on the porch of their house in Kirchstetten, Austria. She chronicles the early years of their friendship, when Auden and Kallman became her young daughter Lisa's constant companions, and when their nurturing partnership helped to foster unparalleled creative output for both. Remembering also Kallman's steady decline in his later years, Clark paints a sympathetic picture of the talented and troubled artist and of Auden's abiding love for him.
- Clark's story is generously sprinkled with glimpses of Auden's eccentricities. She recollects his fascination with female anatomy and with the process of birth; his unusual mix of moral seriousness and intellectual frivolity; his love for church ritual and his conviction that homosexuality was wrong.
- Notes:
- Originally published: London : Faber and Farber, 1995.
- Local Notes:
- Gift of the William Way LGBT Community Center.
- ISBN:
- 0231107064
- 9780231107068
- 0231107617
- 9780231107617
- 0231107072
- 9780231107075
- 9780231107600
- 0231107609
- OCLC:
- 34767335
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