The Letters of T. S. Eliot: Volume 1 1898-1922

The first volume of this eagerly-awaited edition of the correspondence of T.S.Eliot covers the period from his childhood in St Louis, Missouri, to the end of 1922, the year of The Waste Laud, seven years after he had married and settled in England. The text includes not only the most significant letters by Eliot that have survived from this period, and a number by Vivien, his first wife, but also revealing letters from his family and others in America, as well as English and French friends and contemporaries. The poet's widow, Mrs Valerie Eliot, has assembled this fascinating material from academic collections, libraries, sale rooms, archives and private sources all over the world, and she has also drawn on her own archive in London. Mrs Eliot has written an Introduction and prepared a Biographical Commentary, and annotated the letters throughout. There are rare and unpublished photographs of Eliot and his milieu among the illustrations, as well as amusing sketches by the poet himself in several of the early family letters.