My One Contribution to Chess (With W.H. Auden inscription)

8vo, hardcover, 113 pages; published by B.W. Huebsch in 1945. Inscribed by British-American poet, playwright, and critic W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden and presented to his friend, the American theologian and public intellectual Reinhold Niebuhr as a birthday gift on 6/21/1946 (the year Auden obtained American citizenship).The warmly personal inscription reads: "Reinhold/with love and many happy returns/from Wystan." Auden added the note "Lots in here about freedom as necessity." Auden and Niebuhr's friendship, and voluminous correspondence, from the late 1930's on, has been well-documented and analyzed, with numerous academic essays parsing Niebuhr's influence on Auden's reconversion to Protestanism in 1939 and his (Auden's) subsequent thought. A nice Auden inscription and association. A double association, actually, as Frank Vigor Morley, the author of the book, was a co-director of Faber and Faber, Auden's publisher. Slight lean to spine. Gentle bumping to fore corners. Minimal foxing to top edge of textblock. Moderate mottling to rear board and spine. Notable discoloration to front board. Light soiling to paper label.