Home • Chronology Entries • Documents • People • Login

Isherwood, Christopher

(Disley, Cheshire 1904-1986 Santa Monica, Calif.) : Britisch-amerikanischer Schriftsteller

Name Alternative(s)

Isherwood, William Bradshaw

Subjects

Index of Names : Occident / Literature : Occident : Great Britain / Literature : Occident : United States of America

Chronology Entries (27)

# Year Text Linked Data
1 1937.2 W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood were commissioned by Faber and Faber in London and Random House in New York to write a book about the Far East. The authors decided that their subject would be the war which had been provoked by the Japanese in July with Marshal Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces in China.Isherwood's reportage was to provide a prose commentary on China and its war, while Auden would write about the war parabolically to provide a theory of human violence.
2 1938.01.19 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood went to Marseilles, where they boarded the "Aramis" for a journey to Hong Kong.
3 1938.02.16-28 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood arrived in Hong Kong and stayed there 12 days.
4 1938.02.28 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood left Hong Kong in the Tai-Shan for Guangzhou. "The railway was being bombed, almost daily, by Japanese planes… The river-boats, which were British-owned, had never been bombed at all". In Guangzhou the British Consul General sent a car. They were to stay at Paak Hok Tung, a settlement of American and English missionaries. The next day they visited Mayor Zang Yanfu. The next day they were invited to lunch with Wu Dezhen. The next two days they were wandering about the city.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 17, 21, 25, 28, 32. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
5 1938.03.04 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood left Guangzhou for Hankou by train.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 34. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
6 1938.03.08 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood in Hankou. "This is the real capital of war-time China. All kinds of people live in this town – Chiang Kai-shek, Agnes Smedley, Chou En-lai ; generals, ambassadors, journalists, foreign naval officers, soldiers of fortune, airmen, missionaries, spies… The Consul has offered us the hospitality of a big empty room." They visit Bishop Logan H. Roots.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 40-41. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Chiang, Kai-shek
  • Person: Roots, Logan H.
  • Person: Smedley, Agnes
  • Person: Zhou, Enlai
7 1938.03.09 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood attended a press conference in Hankou.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 42. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
8 1938 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood went to interview William Henry Donald in Hankou.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 45. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Donald, William Henry
9 1938.03.12 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood met General Alexander von Falkenhausen and Agnes Smedley in Hankou.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 49. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Falkenhausen, Alexander von
  • Person: Smedley, Agnes
10 1938.03.14 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood met Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang May-ling Soong in Wuchang.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 54. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Chiang, May-ling Soong
11 1938.03.17 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood left Hankou by train for Zhengzhou (Henan) with her interpreter Chiang. The next day they visited the American Mission Hospital.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 62, 65. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
12 1938.03.19-24 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood arrive by train and stay in Shangqiu.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 74, 85. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
13 1938.03.24 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood arrived in Suzhou by train at the Garden Hotel.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 87. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
14 1938.03.25 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood met General Li Zongren in Suzhou.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Li, Zongren
15 1938.03.27 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood left Suzhou in hired rickshaws for Liuzhuan.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 94. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
16 1938.03.29-04.10 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood travelled by train and stayed in Xi'an.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 106, 137. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
17 1938.04.13-14 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood travelled by train and returned to Hankou.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 140-141. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
18 1938.04.21 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood attended a party with a number of Hankou intellectuals including the poet Mu Mutian who presented them with some verses written in their honor and Tian Shouchang [Tian Han]. Ma Tongna interviewed them for the newspaper Da gong bao.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 144. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Mu, Mutian
  • Person: Tian, Han
19 1938.04.22-29 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood stayed in Hankou.
Interview of Ma Tongna with W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood in Da gong bao included a Chinese rendering of Auden's sonnet together with a manuscript facsimile in modification. They visited the Wuhan University, met Agnes Smedley, Alexander von Falkenhausen and Du Yuesheng.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 149, 151, 160. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Du, Yuesheng
  • Person: Falkenhausen, Alexander von
  • Person: Smedley, Agnes
20 1938.04.30-05.07 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood travelled to Jiujiang and Nanchang. They stayed at the Burlington Hotel in Nanchang. They visited the Amercian Mission Hospital, Governor of Jiangxi, General Xiong Shihui.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 175-180. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Xiong, Shihui
21 1938.05.08-20 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood travelled and stayed in Jinhua. They met General, Governor Zhejiang Huang Shaohong. They visited Lanxi, Tunki (11 May waiting for the permission to got to the front), Tai hu, Tianmu Shan, Tipu, Anji, Xiaofeng (Zhejiang). They met Peter Fleming.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 181, 183, 197, 208. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Document: Davenport-Hines, Richard. Auden. (London : Heinemann, 1995). S. 173. (Aud14, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Fleming, Peter
  • Person: Huang, Shaohong
22 1938.05.20-22 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood leaved Jinhua for Wenzhou (Zhejiang).
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 222. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
23 1938.05.25-06.12 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood stayed in Shanghai. They met Ambassador Archibald John Kerr and Rewi Alley.
  • Document: Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. S. 227, 238-240. (Aud5, Publication)
  • Person: Alley, Rewi
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Kerr, Archibald John
24 1938.06.12 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood left Shanghai, sailed via Japan to Vancouver and on July 2 they reached New York and went back to England.
  • Document: Finney, Brian. Christopher Isherwood : a critical biography. (New York, N.Y. : Oxford University Press, 1979). S. 138, 140. (Aud13, Publication)
  • Document: Davenport-Hines, Richard. Auden. (London : Heinemann, 1995). S. 176. (Aud14, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
25 1938.11.6-12.2 W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood lectured on 6 November at the Group Theatre, on 28 November at Dulwich and on 2 December at Bedford College in London on China in wartime.
  • Document: Davenport-Hines, Richard. Auden. (London : Heinemann, 1995). S. 177. (Aud14, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
26 1939 Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war [ID D3432].
Sekundärliteratur
Plomer, William. Review of Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war [ID D3432]. In : London Mercury ; vol. 39 (April 1939).
Commissioned by their publishers to write a travel book about the Far East, Messrs. Auden and Isherwood chose to go to China, and spent four months there last year. They now offer the reader who has never been there 'some pmpression of what he would be likely to see, and of what kind of stories he would be likely to hear '. The book contains a travel dairy by Mr. Isherwoods, and poems and many excellent photographs by Mr. Auden.
That these two writers were enterprising goes without saying. Starting from Hong Kong, they journeyed by way of Cantin, Hankow, and Sian, and ended up at Shanghai. They travelled by boat, by car, by train, by rickshaw, on horse-back, on foot. As guests, as interviewers, as English visitors, as fellow-travellers, they encountered all kinds of people, ambassadors, beggars, an American bishop, Chiang Kai-Shek and his wife, doctors, missionaries, Mr. Peter Fleming, servants, soldiers, intellectuals. They visited hospitals and film-studios, dealt with bugs and dystnery, air-raids and ennui, and made their way to the front, or perhaps we had better say the scene of military operations.
All this has resulted in a various and lively commentary ; no bouquet of recollections in transquillity ; not the work of someone with a knowledge of the Chinese language, or of Chinese or Japanese history and culture ; but a collection of snapshots by two extremely animated minds, and like any collection of snapshots uneven and miscellaneous…
He [Isherwood] gives us, so to speak, a feature-film of China at war, the sense of distances, of millions of people very much at sea, of political cross-currents, of chaos, and reminds us continually the 'war is untidy, inefficient, ofscure and largely a matter of chance '. In the end one is left, perhaps inevitably, with a clearer impression of the Europeans and Americans encountered than the Chinese…
Neither Mr. Auden nor Mr. Ishterwood attempts at all to account for the behavior of the Japanese or to make the least allowance for that race, which like very other, has its virtues – and its liberal intellectuals. They are satisfied to see China as a 'cultured pacific ountry ' attacked by a 'brutal upstart enemy '…

Edward Callan : First part : "London to Hong-Kong", is a series of poems by Auden on the outward journey via the Mediterranean, Suez, and the Red Sea. It includes The voyage, The sphinx, and The ship, written on the journey, and Macao and Hong Kong added later.
Second part : "Travel-Diary", is Isherwood's prose account of their experiences in China – derived from their separate diaries – which comprises most of the book.
Third part : "Picture Commentary" has forty-five photographs, mostly by Auden, and two stills from the Chinese film Flight in the Last.
Fourth part : "In Time of War : a sonnet sequence with a verse commentry", Auden's verse contribution. Of the twenty-seven sonnets, twenty are retained, slightly revised and rearranged, as Sonnets from China in Auden's Collected poems.

Douglas Brown : Reread today, Journey appears as a pivotal work registering turning points in the careers of both Auden and Isherwood, and intimating interrelated developments in twentieth-century political, social, literary, religious and sexual history. Complicated by multiplying ironies and compositional discontinuities, Journey reveals incipient postcolonial and postmodernist sensibilities, and involves significant statements about fascism, communism, imperialism, democracy, war, representation and the ethics of modern homosexuality. Journey unfolds a particularly transformative Chinese encounter, in which the experiences of China's otherness and its military disaster are the essential motivating occasions of the acute state of self-reflexivity and the ideological and ethical turning points that Journey records. Though the book achieves less as a study of China than as an instance of exemplary literary self-consciousness and Western self-examination, it has been more frequently appreciated for its historical details than its literary merit. Journey offers vital glimpses of Kuomintang China consumed by the Anti-Japanese War, of the consequent refugee catastrophe, of the tempered optimism of the Nationalist/Communist United Front, and of the febrile hopefulness in the provisional capital of Wuhan in the months after the Nanking atrocity. It also memorably presents the situations of a diverse array of foreigners then active in China.
  • Document: Haffenden, John. W.H. Auden : the critical heritage. (London : Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983). (Critical heritage series). S. 192. (Aud10, Publication)
  • Document: Callan, Edward. From Auden : A carnival of intellect (Sonnets from China). In : Critical essays on W.H. Auden. Ed. by George W. Bahlke. (New York, N.Y. : G.K. Hall, 1991). (Critical essays on British literature). S. 80-81. (Aud4, Publication)
  • Document: Brown, Douglas. Sissywood vs. Alleyman : going nose to nose in Shanghai. In : Brady, Anne-Marie; Brown, Douglas, eds. Foreigners and foreign institutions in Republican China. (London : Routledge, 2013). [Betr. W.H. Auden, Christopher Ishgerwood]. S. 169-170. (Aud17, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
27 1976 Isherwood, Christopher. Christopher and his kind. (London : Methuen, 1976).
"China had become one of the world's decisive battlegrounds. And unlike Spain, it was not already corwded with star literary reporters." He reported Auden saying : "We'll have a war of our very own."
  • Document: Haughton, Hugh. Journeys to war : W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and William Empson in China. In : A century of travels in China : critical essays on travel writing from the 1840s to the 1940s. Ed. by Douglas Kerr and Julia Kuehn. (Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, 2007). S. 149. (Aud16, Publication)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.

Bibliography (3)

# Year Bibliographical Data Type / Abbreviation Linked Data
1 1939 Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. Publication / Aud5
2 1941 [Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher]. Zai zhan shi : shi si xing lian tis hi bing fu shi jie. W.H. Aodeng zhu ; Zhu Weiji yi. (Shanghai : Shi ge shu dian, 1941). (Shi ge fan yi cong shu ; 2). Übersetzung von Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939).
在戰時 : 十四行聯體詩並附詩解 		Publication / Aud1
3 1995 [Isherwood, Christopher]. Zi luo lan gu niang. Yixiuwude deng zhu ; Bian Zhilin yi. (Beijing : Zhongguo gong ren chu ban she, 1995). (Zhongguo fan yi ming jia zi xuan ji). Übersetzung von Isherwood, Christopher. Prater violet : a novel. (London, Methuen., 1946).
[Enthält] : [Gide, André]. Lang zi hui jia ji, Xin de shi liang. Jide. Übersetzung von Gide, André. Le retour de l'enfant prodigue ; précédé de cinq autres traites. (Paris : Gallimard, 1891). 浪子回家
紫罗兰姑娘 		Publication / Gide35

Secondary Literature (5)

# Year Bibliographical Data Type / Abbreviation Linked Data
1 1979 Finney, Brian. Christopher Isherwood : a critical biography. (New York, N.Y. : Oxford University Press, 1979). Publication / Aud13
2 2007 Haughton, Hugh. Journeys to war : W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and William Empson in China. In : A century of travels in China : critical essays on travel writing from the 1840s to the 1940s. Ed. by Douglas Kerr and Julia Kuehn. (Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, 2007). Publication / Aud16
  • Cited by: Asien-Orient-Institut Universität Zürich (AOI, Organisation)
  • Person: Auden, W.H.
  • Person: Empson, William
  • Person: Haughton, Hugh
3 2007 A century of travels in China : critical essays on travel writing from the 1840s to the 1940s. Ed. by Douglas Kerr and Julia Kuehn. (Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, 2007).
www.oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=448539. 		Publication / KerrD1
4 2013 Wystan Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Vandeleur Grayburn (1) 'Just the natives fighting'.
http://brianedgar.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/auden-isherwood-grayburn/.
http://brianwedgar.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/wystan-auden-christopher-isherwood-and.html. 		Web / Aud11
5 2013 Brown, Douglas. Sissywood vs. Alleyman : going nose to nose in Shanghai. In : Brady, Anne-Marie; Brown, Douglas, eds. Foreigners and foreign institutions in Republican China. (London : Routledge, 2013). [Betr. W.H. Auden, Christopher Ishgerwood]. Publication / Aud17