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

THE LETTERS OF
T. S. ELIOT

EDITED BY

VALERIE ELIOT

AND

HUGH HAUGHTON

VOLUME 1
18981922
REVISED EDITION

GENERAL EDITOR

JOHN HAFFENDEN

The desire to write a letter, to put down what you dont want anybody else to see but the person you are writing to, but which you do not want to be destroyed, but perhaps hope may be preserved for complete strangers to read, is ineradicable. We want to confess ourselves in writing to a few friends, and we do not always want to feel that no one but those friends will ever read what we have written.

from English Poets as Letter Writers,
an unpreserved lecture given by TSE
at Sprague Memorial Hall, Yale University,
23 November 1933.
This fragment was recorded by his brother.
( MS Houghton)

1 TSE aged about three, holding Toby.
Photographer: F.W. Guerin, 12th St. and Washington Avenue, St Louis. Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (154a)

2 A The Revd William Greenleaf Eliot, TSEs grandfather.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (251)

3 His parents.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (233 [CCE]; 234 [HWE])

C A baby face with golden promise fraught. TSE aged about four.
Photographer: A. S. Robertson, Proprietor, Canova Studio, 3424 Olive Street, St Louis, Mo. Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (155)

5 Daguerreotype of TSE with his sister Margaret.
Collection Valerie Eliot

6 With his Irish nursemaid, Annie Dunne, c .1895.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (161)

With his mother at East Gloucester, 1895.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (158)
In the schoolyard at the Mary Institute, St Louis, 1896.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (156)

On the porch at Eastern Point, 1896.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (163)
With T. L. McKittrick, a future President of the World Bank, 1896.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (159)

Eleanor and Barbara Hinkley with TSE in 1897.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (167)

Charlotte, the sister who painted his portrait.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (233)

With his cousins Abigail, Martha and Frederick Eliot.
Collection Valerie Eliot

His mothers bedroom at Locust Street.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (262)
Interior of the house at Eastern Point.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (260)

15 Charlottes oil portrait (18 x 23in) c .19001. TSE is reading a volume of his red Shakespeare set, which remains in his library.
Original in the possession of Theodora Eliot Smith.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (172)

The view from the Eliot home at Eastern Point.
Collection Valerie Eliot

Henry (who is taking the photograph) with his parents at the breakfast table, 4446 Westminster Place, St Louis.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (235)

At the helm with a friend (probably Harold Peters).
Collection Valerie Eliot

23 His mother at her bedroom desk (see letter of 30 December 1917).
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (233)

Vivien and TSE at 18 Crawford Mansions, 1916.
Collection Valerie Eliot
In the dining room at Crawford Mansions, July 1916.
Collection Valerie Eliot

27 TSE with Ottoline Morrell at Garsington, c.1920.
Courtesy Mrs Vinogradoff

TSE, Osbert Sitwell, Mary Hutchinson, Jeremy Hutchinson.
Collection Valerie Eliot

Copyright is reserved in all illustrations.

Photographs 1, 2A and B, 3, 4B and C, 6, 7A and B, 8A and B, 9A and B, 10A, B and C, 11A and B, 13B, 14A and B, 15, 16, 17B and C, 18A, B and C, 19A, B and C, 21A and 23 are reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to both Dr William H. Bond, formerly Librarian, and Rodney G. Dennis, Curator of Manuscripts, at the Houghton Library, Harvard University; to Dr Donald Gallup, bibliographer of Eliot and Pound, who has answered innumerable questions with grace; and to Matthew Evans with my editor, John Bodley, for their generous support and encouragement.

For permission to print letters and quote from copyright material, I wish to thank Alain Rivire (Alain-Fournier), Alastair Kershaw (Richard Aldington), Professor Charles W. Eliot (President Eliot), Mme Catherine Gide (Andr Gide), The Ezra Pound Literary Property Trust, and James Laughlin (Ezra Pound), The Bertrand Russell Estate and McMaster University (Bertrand Russell), Francis Wyndham (Sydney Schiff), Franoise Valry (Paul Valry), Harvard University Libraries (J. H. Woods).

I am grateful to Professor John Weightman for translating all letters in French, and to the following for help in various ways: Joan Bailey; Anne Olivier Bell; Kenneth Blackwell, McMaster University; Michael Harry Blechner, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa; Mary Boccaccio, McKeldin Library, University of Maryland; Dr J. M. L. Booker, Lloyds Bank Archivist; Penelope Bulloch, Balliol College Library; William R. Cagle, Saundra Taylor, Lilly Library; Douglass Campbell; Dr Joseph Chiari; the late Marguerite Cohn; Joyce Crick; Arthur Crook; Roy Davids; Dr A. Deiss, General Secretariat, Swiss Medical Institutions; Giles de la Mare; Peter du Sautoy; Donald D. Eddy, Cornell University Library; Barclay Feather, Director of Libraries, Milton Academy; K. C. Gay, Lockwood Memorial Library, Buffalo; Herbert Gerwing, Special Collections, University of Victoria; Mrs Ghika; R. C. Giles, T. G. Mallinson, Highgate School; Robert Giroux; Sir Rupert Hart-Davis; Professor E. N. Hartley, Institute Archives, MIT; Cathy Henderson, Humanities Research Center, University of Texas; the late Robert Henderson; Dr Roger Highfield, Merton College Library; Robert W. Hill, New York Public Library (Manuscript Division); Penelope Hughes-Hallett; J. W. Hunt, Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst; Lord Hutchinson; Carolyn Jakeman; Professor Dorothy O. Johansen, Reed College, Portland, Oregon; William Jovanovich; Monique Kuntz, Bibliothque Municipale, Vichy; the staff of the London Library; Richard M. Ludwig, Princeton University Library; R. Russell Maylone, Northwestern University Library; Professor B. K. Matilal; Joe Mitchenson; Mary C. McGreenery, Harvard Alumni Records; Lord Quinton; Angela Raspin, London School of Economics; Benedict Read; Dr R. T. H. Redpath; Helene Ritzerfeld; Rosenbach Museum & Library; Anthony Rota; Samuel A. Sizer, Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Arkansas; Lola L. Szladits, Berg Collection; Theodora Eliot Smith; Kendon L. Stubbs, University of Virginia Library; Barbara Sturtevant; Elizabeth Stege Teleky, Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago; Professor Kathleen Tillotson; Dr George Watson; the late Helen Willard; Professor David G. Williams; Patricia C. Willis, Beinecke Library, Yale University; Dr Daniel H. Woodward, Huntington Library.