During the Second World War he worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information, an institution satirised by George Orwell in his dystopian "Nineteen Eighty-Four", but equally based on Orwell's experience of the BBC. During the Second World War his work was now no longer so influenced by Auden and he was developing a more traditional style of lyricism. Some critics believe that he reached his full stature as a poet in "Word Over All" (1943), when he finally distanced himself from Auden. After the war he joined the publisher Chatto & Windus as a director and senior editor.