Collections : [Yale University -Yale Center for British Art]

Men in boat still seen only in black silhouette. Small sketch of a ship in graphite in lower right corner of page, outside the image. Reddish stains on paper.

Figures in boat still printed as black silhouettes, but this is the first proof with details added to the figures in gouache. Small tear in the paper.

First proof with engraved details on the figures in the whaling boat.

Numbered 8 in upper right corner.

Auden thanks Nowell-Smith for the proofs of Auden's poem, "Edward Lear," for publication in the March 25, 1939, issue of the Times Literary Supplement (Spring Books supplement). Auden requests that the line "his welcome was prodigious: a flower took his hat" be changed to read "How prodigious the welcome was: flowers took his hat." The correction was not made.

The image shows several stalks of wheat, with a blue beetle on one of the leaves. No Latin name is given.

Richard Shirley Smith gave Roger W. Moss a copy of the cover he designed; a complete score has not been located or examined. This cover is based on an enlargement of Shirley Smith's wood engraving 'Vines' [Bain no. 10].