The Letters of T.S. Eliot. Volume 2, 1923-1925 (v. 2) [Hardcover]

T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (Author), Valerie Eliot (Editor), Hugh Houghton (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2009

Volume Two covers the early years of his editorship of "The Criterion" (the periodical that Eliot launched with Lady Rothermere's backing in 1922), publication of "The Hollow Men" and the course of Eliot's thinking about poetry and poetics after "The Waste Land". The correspondence charts Eliot's intellectual journey towards conversion to the Anglican faith in 1927, as well as his transformation from banker to publisher, ending with his appointment as a director of the new publishing house of Faber & Gwyer, in late 1925, and the appearance of "Poems 1909-1925", Eliot's first publication with the house with which he would be associated for the rest of his life. It was partly because of Eliot's profoundly influential work as cultural commentator and editor that the correspondence is so prolific and so various, and Volume Two of the "Letters" fully demonstrates the emerging continuities between poet, essayist, editor and letter-writer.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Valerie Eliot has edited T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land, a Facsimile & Transcript of the Original Drafts (1971) and The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume I: 1898-1922 (1988; revised 2009) and Volume II: 1923-1925 (2009). Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1888. He came to England in 1914 and published his first book of poems in 1917. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Eliot died in 1965.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 912 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (December 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571140815
• ISBN-13: 978-0571140817
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,309,285 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri, and became a British subject in 1927. The acclaimed poet of The Waste Land, Four Quartets, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, among numerous other poems, prose, and works of drama, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. T.S. Eliot died in 1965 in London, England, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars even famous people have problems, January 2, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Letters of T.S. Eliot: Vol 1, 1898-1922 Ltd (Hardcover)

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (the source of the long running Broadway musical CATS). Murder in the Cathedral. The Waste Land. The Cocktail Party. Prufrock. The Hollow Men. All books I'd heard of or had to read in school --some I actually enjoyed--all written by T.S. Eliot, winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize for literature. An American with an advanced case of anglophilia who went to Britain as a student and basically never went back. Marrying an unsuitable woman -his former secretary- may have had something to do with it (like Princess Di she was high strung and couldn't cope with the duties that came along with her husband's professional and social position). It's interesting to see that poetry is a business like any other in that inspiration is maybe 1% and hard work makes up the other 99% (would you believe a famous literary battle about how to position on a page the words in a poem?). Money problems, literary feuds, the miserable business of publishing a magazine where you think your partners are about to screw you financially, it's all there. A nice friendship with a female cousin and a Frenchman who wrote beautiful letters. Begging letters to mom and then to an older brother for money. Somehow the life of one of the early 20th century's greatest poets and man of letters is very prosaic.(Thank goodness we are spared Eliot's letters to his wine supplier which made up a considerable proportion of the correspondence of Lewis Carroll (author on Alice in Wonderland!). Still, worth reading for T. S. Eliot's nice way with words even in the most ordinary correspondence.