The collection consists of selected correspondence, manuscripts, and photographs of the Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden. Included is an autograph letter by Auden to Robert Van Gelder, dated June 2, 1945, asking him for a copy of Denton Welch's book Maiden Voyage to review for the New York Times. Another autograph letter, addressed to Miss Harriet Anderson of the Princeton University Press and dated May 30, 1948, gives permission to reprint his Criticism in a Free Society. Among the autograph manuscripts are a poem titled "To Caroline Newton for June 28th" and a two-page list of required reading Auden prepared for her. (Newton was an American translator and writer.) The most substantial manuscript is a typescript of Auden's Christmas oratorio "For the Time Being," which represents a series of dramatic monologues spoken by the characters in the story and by choruses and a narrator. Dedicated to the memory of Auden's mother, Constance Rosalie Bicknell Auden, the poem was written in 1941-1942, and it is one of two long poems included in Auden's book of the same name, published in 1944. There are six photographs of Auden, C. W. B. Isherwood, and Chester Kallman taken by Caroline Newton at her house in Rhode Island, all bearing Auden's initials on the verso. Also included is a three-page handwritten recollection of seeing Auden's manuscripts by the author Glenway Wescott, dated April 15, 1952.