A monumental event in Eliot scholarship.
Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL,
Pegasus Award for Criticism of the Poetry Magazine
This critical edition of T. S. Eliot's Poems establishes a new text of
the Collected Poems 1909-1962, rectifying accidental omissions and
errors that have crept in during the century since Eliot's astonishing
debut, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." As well as the
masterpieces, the edition contains the poems of Eliot's youth, which
were rediscovered only decades later, others that circulated privately
during his lifetime, and love poems from his final years, written for
his wife Valerie Eliot.
Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue have provided a commentary that
illuminates the imaginative life of each poem. Calling upon Eliot's
critical writings, as well as his drafts, letters, and other original
materials, they illustrate not only the breadth of Eliot's interests and
the range of his writings, but how it was that the author of "Gerontion"
came to write "Triumphal March" and then Four Quartets. Thanks to the
family and friends who recognized Eliot's genius and preserved his
writings from an early age, the archival record is exceptionally
complete, enabling us to follow in unique detail the progress of a mind
that never ceased exploring.
This first volume respects Eliot's decisions by opening with his
Collected Poems 1909-1962 as he arranged and issued it, shortly before
his death fifty years ago. This is followed by poems uncollected but
either written for or suitable for publication, and by a new reading
text of the drafts of The Waste Land. The volume concludes with the
commentary on all of these poems.
The second volume opens with the two books of verse of other kinds that
Eliot issued, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and his translation
of St.-John Perse's Anabase. Different again are the verses informal,
improper, or clubmanlike. Each of these sections has its own commentary.
Finally, pertaining to the entire edition, there is a textual history
that contains not only variants from all known drafts and the many
printings but also extended passages amounting to hundreds of lines of
compelling verse.
"The more we know of Eliot, the better."--Ezra Pound
