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
1898–1922
REVISED EDITION

GENERAL EDITOR

JOHN HAFFENDEN

 
 
 

‘The desire to write a letter, to put down what you don’t 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)

 
CONTENTS
 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS
 

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, TSE’s grandfather.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (251)
B
TSE’s birthplace, 2635 Locust Street, St Louis, which no longer exists.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (262)

 

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

 

4
A
Ada with Henry.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

B
Henry with TSE.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (154)

 

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)

 

7
A
With his mother at East Gloucester, 1895.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (158)
B
In the schoolyard at the Mary Institute, St Louis, 1896.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (156)

 

8
A
On the porch at Eastern Point, 1896.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (163)
B
With T. L. McKittrick, a future President of the World Bank, 1896.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (159)

 

9
A
With his Hinkley cousins and their nannies on the beach at East Gloucester, 1896.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (165)
B
Eleanor and Barbara Hinkley with TSE in 1897.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (167)

 
 

10
A
Charlotte, the sister who painted his portrait.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (233)
B
His sister Marian.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (245)
C
At the front gate of 2635 on the morning after the cyclone of 27 May 1896, with his mother and,
left
, cousin Henrietta and sister Margaret. Marian is hidden.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (162)

 

11
A
With his father, 1895.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (160)
B
And in 1898.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (154)

 

12 TSE in his bedroom at St Louis,
c
.1900.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

13
A
With his cousins Abigail, Martha and Frederick Eliot.
Collection Valerie Eliot
B
At the piano,
c
.1899.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (170)
C
One of his father’s cat drawings.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

14
A
His mother’s bedroom at Locust Street.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (262)
B
Interior of the house at Eastern Point.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (260)

 

15 Charlotte’s oil portrait (18 x 23in)
c
.1900–1. 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)

 

16 Aged about twelve.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (171)

 

17
A
The view from the Eliot home at Eastern Point.
Collection Valerie Eliot 
B
TSE.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (179b)
C
Henry, 1895.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (236)

 

18
A
1907.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (177)
B
1908.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (178)

 

C
On other occasions.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (179b, 188a)

 

19
A
Henry (who is taking the photograph) with his parents at the breakfast table, 4446 Westminster Place, St Louis.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (235) 
B
Henry.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (236)
C
TSE in 1910.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (179a)

 

20 Sailing off the Dry Salvages.

 
 

21
A
TSE in the
Elsa
.
Houghton Library MS Am 2560 (219b)
B
At the helm with a friend (probably Harold Peters).
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

22 Jean Verdenal, January 1915.
Courtesy of Dr George Watson

 

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

 

24 Etching of Vivien Haigh-Wood as a child, by her father, which she gave to Enid Faber on 23 March 1933.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

25
A
Vivien and TSE at 18 Crawford Mansions, 1916.
Collection Valerie Eliot 
B
In the dining room at Crawford Mansions, July 1916.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

26 Tom and Vivien,
c
.1920.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

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

 

28
A
TSE with Maurice Haigh-Wood, Bosham, Sussex, 26 August 1916.
Collection Valerie Eliot
B
At the door of South View, Bosham, 1916.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

29
A
Vivien, Jeremy and Barbara Hutchinson (on wall). TSE, St John Hutchinson (‘Jack’), Sacheverell and Osbert Sitwell, at West Wittering, Sussex, July 1919.
Collection Valerie Eliot
B
TSE, Osbert Sitwell, Mary Hutchinson, Jeremy Hutchinson.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

30 TSE with his mother at Clarence Gate Gardens, summer 1921.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

31 TSE and Henry at Itchenor, Sussex, 1921.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

32 Eleanor Hinkley, 1922.
Collection Valerie Eliot

 

Other books

Pineapple Grenade by Tim Dorsey
Free Fall by William Golding
Johnny Angel by Danielle Steel
All Good Women by Valerie Miner
Private Lives by Tasmina Perry
Takedown by Brad Thor
Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th by Newt Gingrich, William R. Forstchen