Young Eliot

"A rich exploration of Eliot's life, his grinding labors and excoriating intelligence." —Edna O'Brien, The New York Times Book Review

The award-winning biographer Robert Crawford presents us with the first volume of a comprehensive account of the poetic genius of T.S. Eliot. Young Eliot traces the life of the twentieth century's most important poet from his childhood in St. Louis to the publication of his revolutionary poem "The Waste Land." Crawford provides readers with a new understanding of the foundations of some of the most widely read poems in the English language through his depiction of Eliot's childhood—laced with tragedy and shaped by an idealistic, bookish family—as well as through his exploration of Eliot's marriage to Vivien Haigh-Wood, a woman who believed she loved Eliot "in a way that destroys us both."


Quoting extensively from Eliot's poetry and prose as well as drawing on new interviews, archives, and previously undisclosed memoirs, Crawford shows how the poet's background in Missouri, Massachusetts, and Paris made him a lightning rod for modernity. " Most of all, Young Eliot shows us an epoch-shaping poet struggling to make art among personal disasters.


"Crawford has done exceptional spadework in turning up clues that takes us deeper into Eliot's symbolic landscapes." —David Yezzi, The New York Times Book Review

"Tracks in enthralling, exhaustive detail the poet's life . . . No possible connection to Eliot's published work, however faint or distant, goes unnoticed." —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

"The most complex and detailed portrait to date." —Micah Mattrix, The Wall Street Journal

"Brilliantly perceptive.'" —Damian Lanigan, The New Republic