The Dyer's HandBy: W. H. Auden In the early 1950s Auden began planning a prose volume that would bring together some of his published essays, lectures, and reviews, together with newly written notes and aphorisms. In 1956 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and The Dyer's Hand appeared in 1962, combining earlier material with revised versions of many of his Oxford lectures: The result is one of Auden's most original works, his only book of prose devised as