[We should not be tempted] either to believe Auden's own analysis of his creative character, or to divide his output too firmly into the "English" Auden and the "International" one. Of course, his departure for good from England early in 1939 is a very real watershed, but the nature of the change it brought about in Auden's poetry defies simplistic description. I am inclined to follow Edward Lucie-Smith's view, that what Auden learned from America was not how to work but how to be a professional. The 400-odd pages of The English Auden are a rich enough testament to his ability to get down to hard work while he lived in these islands…. Just as stuffed with aphorisms, brilliant paradoxes and sheer good sense as the later pieces in The Dyer's Hand or Forewords and Afterwords, [the prose articles and criticism included in this book] are none the less...