[Rarebooks] FS: One of two known copies of W. H. Auden's Manuscript for THE CHRISTMAS ORATORIO sent to Benjamin Britten

[Charles Agvent]

AUDEN, W. H. THE CHRISTMAS ORATORIO [FOR THE TIME BEING]: CARBON COPY OF 
A TYPED MANUSCRIPT WITH CHORAL SETTINGS.  A 43-page 7-3/4" x 13-3/4" 
carbon copy typescript laid loosely into a makeshift folder consisting 
of a large piece of graph paper with the title THE CHRISTMAS ORATORIO/W. 
H. AUDEN written in pencil in an unknown hand on the front cover. Not 
dated. Occasional minor ink corrections also in an unknown hand. There 
were two early typescripts for the poem, neither typed by Auden. One was 
double-spaced and the other single-spaced. This version is the latter 
which is the second of the two typescripts that Auden arranged to be 
prepared for Benjamin Britten, who he hoped would set the poem to music. 
Auden seems to have sent two copies to Britten to be sure that one got 
there during wartime. One is in the Britten-Pears library; this is the 
other. An interesting typescript differing from the published poem in a 
number of respects. Choral parts are assigned to the speeches by voice. 
In Part 3, "The Temptation of St. Joseph," the text for the chorus 
differs from the published version. In Part 4, "The Summons," there are 
added chorus parts. In Part 5, "Visions of the Shepherds," section two 
has been changed and expanded from the published version. And in Part 9, 
"Flight Into Egypt," section two as published has been eliminated. Good 
and possibly unique. (#011305)        $5,000.00

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