THE COMPOSITION OF FOUR QUARTETS

First edition, first printing. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt sharp, the contents clean throughout. In the very good dustwrapper, nicked to spine tips and corners, the spine and folds toned. Not price-clipped (£9.50 net to the front flap). A nice copy.

An invaluable insight into the origins and composition Eliot's wartime sequence, one of the great poetic works of the twentieth century, Helen Gardner was given full access to the manuscript material and correspondence held in two Cambridge colleges: John Hayward's bequest to King's College and Eliot's own gifts to Magdalene College. The first of the book's two parts contains Gardner's extended study into the background of the sequence, with sections on the manuscript material, the growth of the sequence, and of its sources. The second part prints the published poems in full with textual introductions and in continuous dialogue with extensive footnotes detailing the variants and emendations found in the draft materials, and often calling upon Eliot's correspondence with John Hayward, Geoffrey Faber (and others) during the period of composition.