Eliot, T(homas) S(tearns)

(1888-1965)

   Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he was educated at Harvard, the Sorbonne and Merton College, Oxford; he became a British citizen in 1927. He worked briefly as a schoolteacher, then from 1917 to 1925, he worked at Lloyds Bank in London. In the 1920s, he suffered from ill health and at times was close to breakdown. He became a director in the publishing firm of Faber and Faber, and took responsibility for his firm's selection of poets. In 1927 he became a member of the Anglican Church; many of his poems reflect his spiritual journey. In 1948 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Order of Merit. He is commemorated by a memorial stone in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. His first work Prufrock and Other Observations was published in 1917. Collected Poems 1909-1962 was published in 1963. The musical Cats was inspired by his Old Possum's Book of Cats. Some of his other poems: "Ash Wednesday," "Boston Evening Transcript," "Four Quartets," "Journey of the Magi," "Murder in the Cathedral," "Ode on Independence Day, July 4th 1918," "Sweeney Agonistes," "The Rock."

   Sources: Collected Poems 1909-1962 of T.S. Eliot. Harcourt Brace, 1963; reprinted 1991. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Modern American Poetry (http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/index.htm). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.