Letters Vol. 2

This is Volume 2 of The Letters of T. S. Eliot, edited by Valerie Eliot and Hugh Haughton, covering letters from 1923 to 1925 and forming the second part of the multi-volume collected letters of Eliot. Volume 1 ends in 1922, and the three years covered here mark a crucial turning point in Eliot's career: in 1922 he founded the literary review The Criterion, and many of the letters concern soliciting contributions, editing, correspondence with contributors, and the mundane realities of running a journal. In the same period he published The Hollow Men, and his poetic thinking continued to develop after The Waste Land and turned in new directions. The letters also record his transition from bank clerk to publisher, culminating in his appointment at the end of 1925 as a director of the newly founded firm Faber & Gwyer, and the publication of Poems 1909–1925—the beginning of his association with the publishing house that would remain with him for the rest of his life. In addition, the letters reveal his intellectual and spiritual movement toward his 1927 conversion to the Church of England. As poet, critic, editor, and letter writer, Eliot's multiple identities intertwine in these letters; the editors provide detailed notes, a chronology, and an index for each letter, making this volume both a primary source for Eliot studies and a highly readable record of the twentieth-century literary scene.