Author Description

In this sequel to her acclaimed biography of T.S.Eliot, Lyndall Gordon continues her exploration of the ties between Eliot's work and the events and relationships which influenced it. T.S.Eliot's search for a new life after the traumatic break-up of his first marriage was marked externally by his entry into the Anglican Church, and by the exchange of American nationality for British. These two events indicate a break with the past; yet, as Lyndall Gordon's new research shows, Eliot's American ties, both personal and literary, were becoming more, not less, important to him during this period. This inner preoccupation with his past is persuasively traced through the autobiographically revealing early drafts of some of his most mature works The continuing friendship with Emily, the woman who inspired some of his great religious poetry, and with Mary Trevelyan (who, as her memoirs reveal, wanted to marry him), provide the key to a new understanding of Eliot's most inscrutable years.