• A “first person narrative,” key to the work and prayer of the current Book of Common Prayer • Appeal to those interested in literature or in the history of the BCP In the nearly 40 years since the advent of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the retranslation of the Psalter created for that book has become a standard, used not only by Episcopalians, but adopted by others into their own worship service books and liturgies. Now J. Chester Johnson, one of the two surviving members of the Committee that produced the retranslation, has agreed for the first time to calls to tell the story of this Psalter and the little-known but vital part played in it by acclaimed poet W. H. Auden, whom Johnson replaced on the committee when Auden decided to return to live in England. Despite Auden’s ambivalence about changes in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, he wrote associated articles and poems, authored many letters—some of special liturgical and spiritual significance— and attended Psalter drafting committee meetings. Auden, The Psalms, and Me not only illuminates this untold part of the Episcopal Psalter story but also describes the key elements that drove the creation of this special retranslation.

A “first person narrative,” key to the work and prayer of the current Book of Common Prayer Appeal to those interested in literature or in the history of the BCP In the nearly 40 years since the advent of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the retranslation of the Psalter created for that book has become a standard, used not only by Episcopalians, but adopted by others into their own worship service books and liturgies. Now J. Chester Johnson, one of the two surviving members of the Committee that produced the retranslation, has agreed for the first time to calls to tell the story of this Psalter and the little-known but vital part played in it by acclaimed poet W. H. Auden, whom Johnson replaced on the committee when Auden decided to return to live in England. Despite Auden’s ambivalence about changes in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, he wrote associated articles and poems, authored many letters—some of special liturgical and spiritual significance—and attended Psalter drafting committee meetings. Auden, The Psalms, and Me not only illuminates this untold part of the Episcopal Psalter story but also describes the key elements that drove the creation of this special retranslation.

Bible scholar Christian Brady, an expert on Old Testament lament, was as prepared as a person could be for the death of a child—which is to say, not nearly well enough. When his eight-year-old son died suddenly from a fast-moving blood infection, Brady heard the typical platitudes about accepting God's will and knew that quiet acceptance was not the only godly way to grieve. With deep faith, knowledge of Scripture, and the wisdom that comes only from experience, Brady guides readers grieving losses and setbacks of all kinds in voicing their lament to God, reflecting on the nature of human existence, and persevering in hope. Brady finds that rather than an image of God managing every event and action in our lives, the biblical account describes the very real world in which we all live, a world full of hardship and calamity that often comes unbidden and unmerited. Yet, it also is a world into which God lovingly intrudes to bring comfort, peace, and grace.

To help readers understand Auden's work, the poet and scholar John Fuller examines all of Auden's published poems, plays, and libretti, leaving out only some juvenilia. In unprecedented detail, he reviews the works' publishing history, paraphrases difficult passages, and explains allusions. He points out interesting variants (including material abandoned in drafts), identifies sources, looks at verse forms, and offers critical interpretations. Along the way, he presents a wealth of facts about Auden's works and life that are available in no other publication.

'For a poet like myself, an autobiography is redundant' Auden wrote to a friend, 'since anything of importance that happens to one is immediately incorporated, however obscurely, in a poem.' This scholarly book is the history of Auden's poems, and of the events that went into them, from the time he moved to America in 1939 until his death in Austria in 1973. It completes the study begun by Professor Mendelson in his standard Early Auden. Later Auden links the changes in Auden's intellectual, religious and domestic life with his shifting public roles - as representative of political causes, as a researcher working for the army in post-war Germany, as public moralist, lecturer and teacher, and above all as poet and thinker. Mendelson shows how Auden converted the success and later wreckage of his relationship with Chester Kallman into the seemingly impersonal meditations of his long poems, and explores theways his later poetry celebrates the human body. Throughout he reveals the depth of Auden's struggles with himself and with the temptations of his growing fame, showing how these struggles gave shape to his imperishable art.

Twelve years ago, our fates were sealed with a kiss. We are all, for better or worse, doomed to love each other until death do us part. My heart belongs to Proserpina and St. Sebastian—even if he no longer wants it. Even if she has left it behind to follow him. Delphine’s fled back home, and Becket’s holy calling is in peril. And now only Rebecca and I remain at Thornchapel to face the unknown. The door is open. The door that shouldn’t exist; the door that people have died to close. I don’t feel like the lord of the manor. I don’t feel like a king or a wild god. I am a friend and a boyfriend and a brother—and a failure at being all of these things. But the door doesn’t care about my guilt. It only cares about the sacrifice I’ll make to close it. As the bruising dark of Samhain approaches, so does the fate of our circle, of Thornchapel and the village and the valley beyond it. And I must don the crown, because one thing is still true, even if I must face it alone. Here at Thornchapel, the kings must go to the door. Here at Thornchapel, all kings must die.