W.H. Auden

W.H. Auden was born in 1907and had already established himself as a leading poet in England in his twenties. His student days were spent in Oxford and in the late 1920s he lived in Germany observing the emergence of Hitler as a force in German politics. Returning to England, he continued to publish poetry and drama and mixed with such literary names as Stephen Spender and Isherwood. In 1939, he left England for The United States, a move for which he was criticized as being unpatriotic and cowardly. Here he met his lifelong companion, the Jewish Chester Kalman with whom he would have an ongoing relationship until his death in 1973. Auden spent his last years in England and Austria.