Selected Poems [Paperback]

T. S. Eliot (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 18, 1967

Chosen by Eliot himself, the poems in this volume represent the poet’s most important work before Four Quartets. Included here is some of the most celebrated verse in modern literature-”The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Gerontion,” “The Waste Land,” “The Hollow Men,” and “Ash Wednesday”-as well as many other fine selections from Eliot’s early work.

Editorial Reviews

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 132 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (October 18, 1967)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156806479
• ISBN-13: 978-0156806473
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #89 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Poetry

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Introduction to T. S. Eliot, May 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

I thought that this book was a great introduction to T. S. Eliot. It contains most of his really famous pieces, including The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, A Love Song for J. Alfred Prufrock, and many others. If you like it, you might also try "Murder in the Cathedral."

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good collection of Eliot's poems, November 28, 2004

By 

butterflyeffect67 ":: Aelis ::" (Ibiza, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

If you can only get one book of poems, get this one. It has the most important poems before "Four Quartets". If you want more,get also "Four Quartets" and "Murder in the Cathedral" or, even better, get the collected poems.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The strange and haunting visions of T.S Eliot, May 16, 2006

By 

Menachem Rephun "Billy Sluthers McShea" (Passaic, N.J) - See all my reviews

This review is from: T.S. Eliot: Selected Poems (Library of Classic Poets) (Hardcover)

It took me sometime before I could genuinely come to understand and appreciate his poetry: yet, nevertheless, the writings of American-born, anglocized author T.S Eliot have always held a peculiar fascination for me, and, it seems, for a number of other writers and laypeople as well. From the personal yet somehow universal, melancholy and self-doubting music of "The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to the wild, multi-cultural, history spanning visions of urban chaos in "The Wasteland", Eliot's oeuvre is rich in religious, political, and philosophical themes, and played an enormous role in shaping the development of poetry in the twentieth-century (not to mention, on an obviously less signficant level, my own writing). Reading Eliot's serious poetry, however, requires a great deal of analytical prowess and is often a rather depressing experience (particularly in the beautiful "Prufrock"): nevertheless, those with patience will find that it is richly rewarding and can be appreciated on a superificial level simply for the entrancing rhythm of the music and haunting nature of the imagery, which, though informed by a number of sources, including Shakespeare, Dante, and Baudelaire, are written in a voice which is always distinctive and wholly original.