Monday, September 26, 2016

Birthday Book of the Day: Eliot's mid-career collected poems

Today is the birthday of T. S. Eliot (1888-1965). The Nobel Prize website- he won the Literature Award in 1948- says of him:

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, of an old New England family. He was educated at Harvard and did graduate work in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and Merton College, Oxford. He settled in England, where he was for a time a schoolmaster and a bank clerk, and eventually literary editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber, of which he later became a director. He founded and, during the seventeen years of its publication (1922-1939), edited the exclusive and influential literary journal Criterion. In 1927, Eliot became a British citizen and about the same time entered the Anglican Church.

Eliot has been one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. Never compromising either with the public or indeed with language itself, he has followed his belief that poetry should aim at a representation of the complexities of modern civilization in language and that such representation necessarily leads to difficult poetry. Despite this difficulty his influence on modern poetic diction has been immense. Eliot's poetry from Prufrock (1917) to the Four Quartets (1943) reflects the development of a Christian writer: the early work, especially The Waste Land (1922), is essentially negative, the expression of that horror from which the search for a higher world arises. In Ash Wednesday (1930) and the Four Quartets this higher world becomes more visible; nonetheless Eliot has always taken care not to become a «religious poet». and often belittled the power of poetry as a religious force. However, his dramas Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Family Reunion (1939) are more openly Christian apologies. In his essays, especially the later ones, Eliot advocates a traditionalism in religion, society, and literature that seems at odds with his pioneer activity as a poet. But although the Eliot of Notes towards the Definition of Culture (1948) is an older man than the poet of The Waste Land, it should not be forgotten that for Eliot tradition is a living organism comprising past and present in constant mutual interaction. Eliot's plays Murder in the Cathedral (1935), The Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party (1949), The Confidential Clerk (1954), and  The Elder Statesman (1959) were published in one volume in 1962; Collected Poems 1909-62 appeared in 1963.

To celebrate the life of one of the great poets in English, Henry Bemis is pleased to offer this, Eliot’s first “greatest hits” volume:

eliot 1935 spine.jpg

Eliot, T.S. , Collected Poems 1909-1935 (2nd ed., Harcourt Brace & Co., 1936). Poetry was a young man’s game for Eliot; this volume sums up his life’s work, the best of which was behind him. At 47, Eliot’s plinth was erected, but he was a decade away from ascending it. Hardcover, no dust jacket, very good condition. Blue buckram boards with gilt titling on the spine. Some age darkening of the top edge. 8.5” x 5.5”; 220 pp.  HBB price: $50.

Eliot 1935 title page.jpg

Henry Bemis Books is one man’s attempt to bring more diversity and quality to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg market of devoted readers starved for choices. Our website is at www.henrybemisbookseller.blogspot.com. Henry Bemis Books is also happy to entertain reasonable offers on items in inventory; for pricing on this or others items, kindly private message us. Shipping is always free; local buyers are welcome to drop by and pick up their purchases at our location off Peachtree Road in Northwest Charlotte if they like.

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