RaveThe Irish Times (IRE)Ackroyd, who began as a poet, is adept at technical analysis of Auden’s work and delineates the various phases of his career ... There is a particularly well-framed analysis of Auden’s strict adherence to traditional poetic forms illuminated by parallelisms with his obsession with crosswords ... The incidents and personalities of Auden’s life are all represented, and Ackroyd is an acute surveyor of the poet’s psychology ... A definitive achievement written with verve, and an appreciation of a poetic corpus, but one will leave it with a moral horror of Auden.
