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Octavo, 64 pages. In Good condition. Black spine with gilted lettering. Boards have mild shelving wear, stains on the front and rear boards, mild wear along the extremities, mild wear along the head and tail edges, fraying along the fore corners and spine, and moderate age-toning along the spine. Textblock has splitting to gutter from the half-title page to page 9, indenting on the head edge of page 55 through to the rear end-page, stains on the end-pages and pastedowns, mild wear along the edges, and moderate age-toning along the edges. Limited edition #562/1000. DL consignment. Shelved in Case 0. Thomas Stearns (T. S.) Eliot was born September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, MO the youngest of six surviving children of the Boston elite Eliot family who had settled in St. Louis after his grandfather moved there to establish a Unitarian church. Eliot's love of literature was fostered by two major influences. The first was his physical limitation, suffering from a inguinal hernia, Eliot was unable to participate in many physical activities leaving him free to read beside his second great influence, the Mississippi. After graduating college, Eliot was set to travel to England for further studies. Just before leaving, he declared his love for Emily Hale, who would remain his muse and confidant for many years. Not long after living in England Eliot married Vivienne Haigh Wood in 1915. The match was rather unhappy, Vivienne suffering from health problems and eventually having an affair with another man, Eliot working fourteen to fifteen hour-long shifts that left him exhausted and with a nervous disorder. It is from this unhappy union that Eliot wrote his masterpiece "The Waste Land". Hailed as one of the most important poems of the 20th century, "The Waste Land" was first published in the UK in Eliot's magazine "The Criterion" and in the US in "The Dial" magazine. Boni & Liveright would publish the poem in a book with a first edition run on 1,000 copies, shortly after producing a second edition run of another 1,000. Initial reviews were mixed, some critics disparaging the structure, a problem Eliot himself had raised concerns about, initially wanting the poem broken up between four issues of "The Dial". However, supporters of the poem hailed it's inventiveness and modern content. The lack of structure to the poem has remained a point of debate across the century of it's existence, leading many to have varying interpretations of the poem's meaning and themes. 1388752. Shelved Dupont Bookstore. Second Edition, First Printing, Limited Edition #562/1000.
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