ABSTRACT
Editor, anthologist, bibliographer, and literary critic, John Hayward (1905–65) first won praise for his precocious editions of Rochester, Donne, and Swift, and occupied an influential place in English letters from the late 1920s until his death. He became the confidant and adviser of numerous writers, as well as a prolific reviewer, and provided creative advice on the plays and poems (especially ‘Four Quartets’) of T.S. Eliot, with whom he shared a Chelsea flat from 1946 to 1957. In his last years, as the erudite and astringent editor of the ‘Book Collector’, he made that journal pre-eminent in the field of bibliography. His own anthologies include the ‘Penguin Book of English Verse’ and the ‘Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century Verse’. Auden, with whom he became acquainted in the 1930s, placed some confidence in his criticism, as this note from the 1940s (dated New York, 25 October) confirms: ‘The opera [’The Rake’s Progress’] whose libretto you so kindly vetted is going well – the second act nearly finished’ (Hayward Papers, King’s College Library, Cambridge).
