1896-1922 (v. 1) (The Letters of T.S.Eliot) - Tapa dura

Published on the centenary of his birth, this volume of the correspondence of T.S.Eliot covers the period from his childhood in St Louis, Missouri, until the end of 1922 - the year of "The Waste Land" and seven years after he had married and settled in England. The text includes not only letters of significance which Eliot wrote during this period, but also letters written to him by family, friends and contemporaries. The poet's widow, Mrs Valerie Eliot, has assembled the material from collections, libraries, sale rooms, archives and private sources all over the world. She has also drawn extensively upon her own archive in London. She has written the introduction, annotated the letters throughout and provided chronologies and an editorial commentary where necessary. The photographs, many of them previously unpublished, depict Eliot and his milieu, while sketches by the poet himself appear amongst several of the early letters. Mrs Eliot is also the editor of "The Waste Land Facsimile".

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.