Family Background: His father, George Auden, was an intern at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, when he met his future wife, a nurse, Constance Bicknell. She had graduated from London University where she had specialised in French and she was intending to join a Protestant medical mission in Africa. After they married in 1899 they moved to York where George Auden set up as a general practitioner of medicine. In 1900 they had a son, Bernard, in 1903 they had John, and in 1907 they had Wystan who was born at 54 Bootham, York. The household servants included a cook, two maids, and a coachman. In 1908 the family moved to Birmingham when George Auden was appointed School Medical Officer for the city, and he was also appointed Professor of Public Health at the University. George Auden was also a published writer and translator of archaeological and psychological articles.

Education: Wystan Hugh Auden went to school for the first time at the age of eight in September 1915 when he was sent to a preparatory school, St Edmund's at Hindhead, Surrey, where he stayed until 1920. His brother Bernard had already been there, and his brother John was still at the school. In 1918 Auden got to know Christopher Bradshaw-Isherwood, who would later simplify his name to Christopher Isherwood. During his final year Auden won a prize for his proficiency as a pianist, a Form Prize, and first prize for mathematics. In his final term he helped form the St Edmund's School Literary Society with fellow pupil Harold Llewellyn Smith.
In the autumn of 1920 Auden went to Gresham's School in Holt, a small market town in north Suffolk, about ten miles from Cromer. The following year he won the top scholarship at the school. In the summer of 1922 the fifteen-year-old Auden was cast in the school production of The Taming of the Shrew, playing Katharina opposite the seventeen-year-old Sebastion Shaw's Petrucchio.

Work: On 16th. December 1922 Auden's first published poem, Dawn, appeared anonymously in the school magazine, The Gresham. Also in 1923, Walter Greatorex, the senior Music master at Greasham School introduced Auden to Michael Davidson, a twenty-six-year-old junior sub-editor on the Eastern Daily Press in Norwich. The meeting had to be in secret because Auden's housemaster had forbidden it because Michael Davidson was a homosexual who may also have been to prison. Auden sent his poems to Michael Davidson, who, in turn, returned them with long letters of helpful criticism. Michael Davidson also bought books of poetry and literary criticism for Auden, who kept them for the rest of his life. In 1924 one of Auden's poems was published in an annual volume called Public School Verse, although with the author's name incorrectly spelled as "Arden". Michael Davidson (anonymously) reviewed the book in the Eastern Daily Press on 26th. September 1924, and briefly reviewed Auden's poem.
In the 1930s W. H. Auden wrote on social problems from a far-left perspective, especially in the collection of poems Look! Stranger! He visited Berlin a number of times and married Erika Mann, the daughter of Thomas Mann, so that she could get a passport out of Nazi Germany.
In 1932 Auden went to Downs School near Malvern to teach English.
Auden went to Spain as a civilian in support of the Republican side, and he wrote about it in Spain. He joined the GPO Film Unit in 1935, and for the film Coal Face Benjamin Britten provided musical settings for Auden's verse commentary. Auden collaborated with Benjamin Britten in the chamber opera Paul Bunyan. (right).
He was appointed associate professor at Michigan University.
He then returned to live in England and was appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford (1956-61). He won the Feltrinelli Prize in 1957 and was consequently able to buy his first house in Kirchstetten near Vienna. He spoke fluent German and became a popular local figure referred to as 'Herr Professor'. The road in which his house stood was re-named Audenstrasse and given a new official name plate. Tom Driberg stayed for a weekend when attending a conference in Vienna.

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