Description: Good; Collectible. [FIRST EDITION] New York: Random House, 1937. Hard cover in dust jacket. 269 pages with plates, diagrams, illustrations, portraits, maps on end-pages. A few letters written in verse. Includes bibliographies. Dj is worn with soiling, chipping, etc., prior owner bookplate, minor foxing to edges, else very good overall condition. No marks, NOT EX-LIBRARY. read more
Edition: 1st Ed. (U.K. ) 1st Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Faber & Faber, London, UK
Date Published: 1937
Description: 51 B/W Illus, 7 Diagrams, Map. VG. No Dust Jacket 268pgs(Apndx) Green cloth with red & black spine letters, spine cloth just slightly darkened & cloth is a little dirty, a few faint dust. Foxing specks on front endpaper & on Title Page, small bookshop sticker inside rear cover, o.w. clean, bright & tight. Text bright & in Fine condition. Folding map (red & black) at end of book. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House, New York
Date Published: 1937
Description: 8vo. Original oatmeal cloth, title labels to upper board and spine printed in blue, top edge stained blue, map endpapers. Housed in a quarter blue morocco drop down box. Illustrated. Spine a little tanned but a very good copy. First US edition, first printing. Inscribed on the half-title by Auden and Isherwood, “To Miss May Cameron with best wishes and thanks for our first American interview Wystan Auden New York July 7th-1938. ” Beneath, Isherwood has penned: “And likewise from Christopher ... read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Paragon House Publishers
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9781557782984ISBN:1557782989
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. 269 p. Armchair Traveller Series. Paragon House trade paperback in glossy illstd covers. Bright and neat; no marks. Mild shelf evidence at edges; a printer's offset smudge at the base of the title page. Solid and neat. VG or a little better read more
Edition: Assumed First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House, New York
Date Published: 1937
Description: Fair-Good. No Jacket. Cover has many stains and discolored spine and board margins. Spine is worn. Bumped corners. Discoloration inside of boards, on textblock and on first and last free end page. Binding and spine are tight. Clean text and illustrations, 269 pages. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House, New York
Date Published: 1937
Description: VG. 269 pages, 9 1/4" x 6", tan cloth covers with paper labels to the front cover and the spine. The spine and cover edges are slightly darkened, previous owner names stamped on the dedication page. Otherwise this is a clean, nice copy. Very Good, no dust jacket. read more
Binding: 1/4 Cloth
Publisher: Random House, New York
Date Published: 1969
Description: Good + + in Good + jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Light blue paper covered boards, straight corners. Black cloth covered spine with bright silver titles, minimal rubbing on head and tail. Book body clean and tight, deckled edges, pale blue topstain. Off-white, blue and black dustjacket. Slight wear to d.j. edges, mild soiling, price intact, archival brodart protected. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Faber and Faber, London
Date Published: 1937
Description: First edition. Octavo. 268 pages. Photographs, mostly taken by Auden; folding map at rear. Prose letters, verse letters and other poems, including "Auden and MacNeice: Their Last Will and Testament", a thirty-three page poem by the two authors. Signed by W.H. Auden on the second blank. Loosely inserted is a flyer for the Group theatre. Corners slightly bruised. Very good in good dustwrapper creased at the edges and with several small holes at hinge of front flap. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House, New York
Date Published: 1937
Description: First Edition, first printing. SIGNED by W. H. Auden on the title page. Near Fine in a Very Good+ dust jacket, A touch of toning to the book's spine label, as well as the jacket spine. Jacket has a few nicks at the spine corners, else quite a nice copy. Uncommon to find signed. read more
"An enjoyable and occasionally very witty read. It's a shame Auden didn't really seem to have a lot of fun, or to like Iceland all that well. Since it was his love of Norse literature in part that drew him to Iceland, it would have been nice if he'd given some idea of how it felt to be in the land where the events took place, whether it was disappointment or whether there was some satisfaction in the pilgrimage. I think overall from inference Iceland was a disappointment to Auden. Journey to Iceland (the poem) expresses a longing for the isolation and 'non-Europeanness' of Iceland, and a deeper understanding of Grettir, Egil Skallagrímsson, Guðrún Osvifsdóttir et al. He either fails to find these things, or does find them and wishes he hadn't. Most of his bits are him complaining about the soup (which, in fairness, does sound a bit odd - hot marzipan flavour?)."
"i had to wait about four months to finally get a copy of this from the nypl. if you try to buy a copy online it's like 80 dollars. my favorite parts were about the icelandic diet. i really did like how lazy and simple this book was but probably for this reason i couldn't propel myself through the second half. probably just more of the same anyway."
"Auden and MacNeice were initially unsure how to write this. They finally adopted the voices of two British schoolgirls on holiday and wrote the entire thing in very fruity tones. Quite amusing."
"I am rather split brained about Letters From Iceland by W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice. There were pieces of it that had me roaring with laughter and other pieces where I just had to skip out of boredom or disinterest.
Letters From Iceland is a collection of writings inspire by a trip to Iceland. It was published in 1937 and has been reprinted a number of times. W. H. Auden provided about two-thirds of the pieces including a lengthy (and rather dull) epic poem called a "Letter to Lord Byron." Louis MacNeice provided the remaining third of the text.
My favorite parts of the book were the notes for tourists which includes practical advice on what to pack an who to dress, warnings about the food an transportation. The descriptions of the Icelandic traditions taken from a British point of view made for a humorous comparison with the dwarves in Pratchett's discworld novels; I was constantly reminded of Carrot.
My all time favorite piece of the book was a satiric letter "Hetty to Nancy" by MacNeice. It is an account of a disastrous group camping trip. Hetty recounts the problems of sleeping facing down hill, with sleeping on rocks and with tents in the rain when the tents haven't been properly pitched."
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