Publisher's Synopsis
"A groundbreaking new biography of one of the twentieth century's most important poets On the fiftieth anniversary of the death of T. S. Eliot, Robert Crawford presents us with the first volume of a definitive biography of this poetic genius. 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's depiction of Eliot's childhood--laced with tragedy and shaped by an idealistic, bookish family in which knowledge of saints and martyrs was taken for granted--provides readers with a new understanding of the foundations of some of the most widely read poems in the English language. Meticulously detailed and incisively written, Young Eliot portrays a brilliant, shy, and wounded American who defied his parents' wishes and committed himself to an artistic life as an immigrant in England, creating work that is astonishing in
