Join Faber Members for 10% off your first order.
** Chosen as a New Statesman, Financial Times, Observer and Sunday Times Book of the Year **
A riveting account of the making of T. S. Eliot’s celebrated poem The Waste Land on its centenary.
‘A rattling good story’ Sunday Telegraph
‘A work of art’ Times Literary Supplement
The Waste Land has been called the ‘World’s Greatest Poem’. It has been labelled the most truthful poem of its time; it has been branded a masterful fake. More than a century after its publication in 1922, T. S. Eliot’s enigmatic masterpiece remains one of the most influential works ever written.
In a remarkable feat of biography, Matthew Hollis reconstructs the creation of the poem and brings the material reality of its charged times vividly to life. He reveals the cultural and personal trauma that forged The Waste Land through the lives of its protagonists — Ezra Pound, who edited it; Vivien Eliot, who sustained it; and T. S. Eliot himself, whose private torment is woven into the seams of the work. The result is an unforgettable story of lives passing in opposing directions and the astounding literary legacy they would leave behind.
Matthew Hollis is the author of Ground Water, shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Whitbread Prize for Poetry. Now All Roads Lead to France: the Last Years of Edward Thomas (published by Faber, in 2011) won the Costa Biography Award and was Sunday Times Biography of the Year.
Read More
Faber Poetry Editor and author of The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem celebrates the history of the poem …
After ten-and-a-half years in the role, and more than two decades with the list, Matthew Hollis has announced that he …
We asked Faber authors and staff to tell us which books they’ve been loving this year, which they’ll be giving …
In celebration of the centenary of The Waste Land, author and Faber Poetry Editor Matthew Hollis writes about the enduring …
To mark the centenary in 2022, Faber is delighted to announce new publishing and an exciting work of non-fiction by …