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Five manuscript and two typescript letters, 30 November 1956-10 September 1957, from Wystan [Hugh] Auden, Forio d'Ischia, near Naples, and Oxford, to Vernon Watkins (ff. 1-7), together with one poem by Auden (f. 8).
The letters concern the choices and alternative choices for Poetry Book Society recommendations, the judges of which were Auden, Watkins and Vita Sackville-West; Auden refers to works by Thom Gunn, Roy Campbell, Theodore Roethke, Edmund Blunden and Louis MacNeice. Enclosed with the final letter is a typescript copy of Auden's poem 'The More Loving One' (see Collected Shorter Poems, 1927-1957 (London, 1966), p. 282).

Exercise book, 1938, of Vernon Watkins, containing drafts of translations from German of eight poems by Theodor Storm (ff. 2-4), Rilke (ff. 5-8) and Novalis (ff. 10-11).
Four of the poems (ff. 2-3, 5, 8) were published in Vernon Watkins, Selected Verse Translations (London, 1977), pp. 70-1, 73.

Autograph and typescript drafts, 1933-1966, by Vernon Watkins of verse translations from Greek, Italian and French poetry, all published in Selected Verse Translations (1977).

Autograph and typescript drafts, 1941-1966, by Vernon Watkins of verse translations from German and Italian poetry, published in Selected Verse Translations (1977), together with a few other draft translations published elsewhere.

Autograph and typescript drafts, 1958-1966, of verse translations from Hungarian by Vernon Watkins, together with related correspondence and literal translations by Tamás Kabdebó; some of Watkins's versions of poems by Attila József and Gyula Illyes were published in Kabdebó's editions of their works (1963, 1968, 1971).

Autograph and typescript drafts, [1930s]-1966, of verse translations by Vernon Watkins from Italian and Spanish, apparently mainly unpublished. Extracts from Watkins's translation of Dante's Inferno (ff. 1-55) were broadcast by the BBC in 1966.

Autograph and typescript drafts, [1920s]-1967, by Vernon Watkins of verse translations from French, many apparently unpublished. Cuttings are included of some poems published in periodicals and anthologies.

Autograph and typescript drafts, [1920s]-1967, of verse translations from German by Vernon Watkins, many apparently unpublished. Proofs and cuttings are included of some poems published in periodicals and anthologies, together with a few notes by Ruth Pryor and original German texts used by Watkins.

Typescript drafts, 1947-1951, of verse translations by Vernon Watkins of Heinrich Heine's cycle 'Die Nordsee', published as Heinrich Heine, The North Sea (London: Faber and Faber, 1955).

Exercise book containing autograph drafts, 1936-1937, by Vernon Watkins of verse translations from French, some of which were included in Selected Verse Translations (1977), and some being apparently unpublished.

Incomplete autograph and typescript drafts, [?1920s]-[1940s], of 'Susanna. A Masque' by Vernon Watkins (ff. 1-38), together with fragmentary autograph drafts of a verse dramatisation of the story of Judith and Holofernes (ff. 39-52), and a dramatic fragment in prose and verse, 'The Dog's Head' (f. 53), all apparently unpublished.

Papers, [1920s]-1988, of Vernon Watkins, comprising drafts of poems published in collections and elsewhere, 1934-1967, unpublished poems, [1920s]-1967, and verse translations from German, French, Greek, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian, [1920s]-1967; drafts and translations of verse dramas, [1920s]-[1940x1967]; prose articles and essays, [1935]-1967; radio scripts, 1948-1967; talks and lecture notes, 1947-1967; correspondence, 1937-1988, including letters to Gwen Watkins following her husband's death; diaries, 1931, 1966; bibliographical lists of his poetry, [?1941]-1967; and some literary material relating to posthumous publications, 1976-1978.

Twelve letters, 1949-1967, from Vernon Watkins to various correspondents, together with eleven letters, 1940-1941, to Watkins from J. R. Ackerley, chiefly concerned with the poet's work.

Autograph and typescript drafts, 1930-1964 and undated, of shorter poems by Vernon Watkins, almost all apparently unpublished.
Two poems, 'Note towards a poem' (f. 74) and 'There is a pattern...' (f. 75) appeared in Poetry Wales, 12.4 (Spring 1977), 38, 43.

Autograph and typescript drafts, [1930s]-1967, of poems by Vernon Watkins, almost all apparently unpublished.
There are copies of both short and long poems, as well as fragments, including multiple drafts of 'The Birth to Destruction', 1937-1947 (ff. 6-17), 'The Moth', 1952-1966 (ff. 55-89, thirty-seven drafts), 'The Will', 1960-1961 (ff. 93-100), 'The Melodramatic', 1965-1967 (ff. 101-112), and 'The Fall of Sodom', [1960x1967] (ff. 285-300), and a number of apparently different poems on the theme of 'Taliesin', 1938 (ff. 18-33). 'The Measure Moves' (ff. 70 verso, 72 verso, 73 verso, 75 verso) and 'The Guest' (f. 223 verso) appeared in Fidelities (London, 1968), pp. 26, 96.

Exercise book containing drafts of a poem, 1924, composed by Vernon Watkins during his year at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and apparently unpublished (ff. 48-54 verso, 57 recto-verso).
The volume also contains notes, 1924, on the Epistle to the Ephesians (ff. 1-11).

Autograph and typescript drafts of translations and plays, [1940s]-[1967], by Vernon Watkins, including 'The Salzburg Great World Theatre', [1963], a typescript draft of a translation from the German of Hofmannsthal's play, 'Das Salzburger grosse Welttheater' (ff. 13-63).
It was published, with some revisions, as 'The Salzburg Great Theatre of the World' in Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Selected Plays and Libretti, ed. by Michael Hamburger (New York, 1963), pp. 79-172. Also included are translations from the German, most apparently unpublished, of poems by Rilke, [1948] (f. 2), Theodor Storm, 1962, 1966 (ff. 3-4), Friederich Hölderlin, [1960x1967] (ff. 5-9), and Eduard Mörike, [1960x1967] (f. 12), and a translation from the French of the first seven verses of François Villon's 'Le Petit Testament', [1960x1967] (ff. 10-11); drafts of parts of 'The Island' (ff. 64-75) and 'The Eclipse' (ff. 76-78), two proposed plays by Watkins, [1940x1967]; a verse 'Epilogue for a play', [1940x1967] (ff. 79-80); and 'A Book from Venice', 1948, a poem by Watkins (published in Botteghe Oscure, 2 (1948), 270-1) (f. 2 verso). The translation of Storm's 'Cats' (f. 3) was published in TLS, 9 March 1962, p. 162.

Autograph and typescript drafts, 1937-1943, of a long, apparently unpublished poem by Vernon Watkins entitled 'The Sleeper'.

Autograph draft, [c. 1927], by Vernon Watkins of a long poem entitled 'The Prisoners in the Green Land. A Symphony'.

Exercise book containing draft poems, 1927-1928, apparently unpublished, composed by Vernon Watkins for a sequence entitled 'The Prisoners'.