Mary and Mr Eliot: A Sort of Love Story

A completely fascinating, revelatory exposure of a forgotten corner of T.S. Eliot’s amatory life – brilliantly curated, edited and annotated by Erica Wagner. A classic of its kind.

Compelling . . . Has the suspense of works of fiction . . . [a] compulsive page-turner.

A not unfamiliar story: adored man and devoted woman friend, liked but never loved
and devastated by his sudden marriage to another. T.S. Eliot – great poet, bastard behaviour. Heartbreaking and wonderfully told.

Reading this elegant, clever and moving book is like looking at Eliot through a lancet window: we get a tightly-focused and revealing view of one of his most important friendships, and a valuable understanding of how it relates to the panorama of his whole personality. An exemplary ’sort of’ biography.

Erica Wagner has assembled the unpublished memoir Mary Trevelyan wrote about her romantic friendship with Eliot, along with the texts of the letters Eliot sent her and her diaries, and drawn them together with her own approachable, unpretentious narration.

[Mary and Mr Eliot] is more than a memoir of knowing a famous poet; it’s a dual portrait of a woman who hides nothing and a celebrity given to secrecy . . . How deftly Wagner transforms a scrapbook filled with gems into a revealing and ultimately tragic story.