Letters of T. S. Eliot Volume 8: 19361938
(Hardback, Main)
Publishing Details
Letters of T. S. Eliot Volume 8: 19361938
By (Author) T. S. Eliot
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
4th February 2019
Main
United Kingdom
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Diaries, letters and journals
Literary studies: poetry and poets
Poetry
821.912
Physical Properties
Hardback
1152
Width 170mm, Height 240mm, Spine 50mm
1500g
Description
Eliot is called upon to become the completely public man. He gives talks, lectures, readings and broadcasts, and even school prize-day addresses. As editor and publisher, his work is unrelenting, commissioning works ranging from Michael Roberts's The Modern Mind to Elizabeth Bowen's anthology The Faber Book of Modern Stories. Other letters reveal Eliot's delight in close friends such as John Hayward, Virginia Woolf and Polly Tandy, and his colleagues Geoffrey Faber and Frank Morley, as well as his growing troupe of godchildren - to whom he despatches many of the verses that will ultimately be gathered up in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939).
The volume covers his separation from first wife Vivien, and tells the full story of the decision taken by her brother, following the best available medical advice, to commit her to an asylum - after she had been found wandering in the streets of London. All the while these numerous strands of correspondence are being played out, Eliot struggles to find the time to compose his second play, The Family Reunion (1939), which is finally completed in 1938.
Reviews
"The editing of the letters is exemplary in its detail, authority and quality of annotation. It is the closest thing to a perfect edition of a great writer's correspondence that can be imagined."--Spectator
Author Bio
Valerie Eliot edited T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land, a Facsimile & Transcript of the Original Drafts (1971) and The Letters of T. S. Eliot. She died in 2012.
John Haffenden is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Sheffield, Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of English Studies, University of London, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His publications include a biography of the American poet John Berryman; editions of the works of William Empson including the Complete Poems (2000); and an award-winning two-volume biography of Empson (2005, 2006).
