The Complete Poems of C. Day Lewis

Book excerpt: C. Day Lewis (1904-1972) was one of the leading young poets of the 1930's who - along with W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender - broke away from the staid poetic establishment to dominate British poetry in the middle third of the century. Here, for the first time, are all the poems Day Lewis wrote, including occasional verse which has never appeared in book form and a number of poems previously published only in limited editions. The Complete Poems has been edited, with an introduction and textual notes, by Jill Balcon, the poet's widow.