This selection, which was made by Eliot himself, is intended as an introduction to the main body of his poetry prior to Four Quartets, which is available separately in Faber Paperbacks. The selection includes the whole of The Waste Land.

Blaise Pascal's famous Pens es (Thoughts) is, in reality, a collection of notes he made for a book he never wrote. Many of the thoughts are fragmentary in nature, and the sectionalising and numbering was devised by a later editor. Yet they contain the key ideas of his religious philosophy, including his famous wager, as well as many other insights and ideas such as his celebrated comment on Cleopatra's nose. This is a new edition (not a scan) of the W. F. Trotter translation of 1908, with an introduction by T. S. Eliot.

Here, for the first time, is a fully scrutinized text of Eliot's poems, carefully restoring accidental omissions and removing textual errors that have crept in over the full century in which Eliot has been so frequently printed and reprinted. The edition also presents many poems from Eliot's youth which were published only decades later, as well as others that saw only private circulation in his lifetime, of which dozens are collected for the first time.

The first volume respects Eliot's decisions by opening with his Collected Poems 1909-1962 in the form in which he issued it, shortly before his death fifty years ago. There follow in this first volume the uncollected poems from his youth that he had chosen to publish, along with such other poems as could be considered suitable for publication.

The Poems of T. S. Eliot is a work of enlightening scholarship that will delight and inform all those who read Eliot for pleasure, as well as all those who read with pleasure and for study. Here are a new accuracy and an unparalleled insight into the marvels and landmarks from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land through to Four Quartets.

The Waste Land is a classic poem by T. S. Eliot, considered a landmark text of the Modernist movement. Famous for juxtaposing Eastern cultures with Western literary references, The Waste Land has been celebrated for its eloquence, depth of meaning and numerous subtleties. Rich with allusions to religious texts of Hinduism and Buddhism, ancient literature, and Eliot's own life, the poem is admired to this day and is a common text in school and university English literature courses. Painstakingly composed, the original drafts of The Waste Land were far longer than the final edition which is composed of five distinct parts. Truncation occurred on the advice of Eliot's contemporary and friend Ezra Pound. A famous line - ""And we shall play a game of chess/The ivory men make company between us / Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door"" - was removed at the request of Eliot's wife Vivienne, it is thought for being too revealing about their married life.

T.S. Eliot's most famous work, The Waste Land, has been called one of the twentieth century's most important poems. Among his most famous lines are "April is the cruellest month" and "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." The poem falls may be placed alongside other prominent modernist poetry, and is especially remarkable for its abrupt change of speaker, place, and time. The Waste Land is pregnant with the futility and despair that pervaded the literary elite of the post-World War I era.

The naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn't just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. So begins one of the best-known poetry collections of all time. The practical cats need no introduction, but this stunning new full-colour version, illustrated by Júlia Sardà, is the perfect companion to Old Toffer's Dogs. Whether you are a cat or a dog person, you will be enchanted by Júlia's highly original interpretation.

A stunning new edition of T. S. Eliot's beloved cat poems Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, containing beautiful original colour illustrations by Axel Scheffler. Cats! Some are sane, some are mad and some are good and some are bad. Meet magical Mr Mistoffelees, sleepy Old Deuteronomy and curious Rum Tum Tugger. But you'll be lucky to meet Macavity because Macavity's not there! In 1925 T.S. Eliot became co-director of Faber & Faber, who remain his publishers to this day. Throughout the 1930s he composed the now famous poems about Macavity, Old Deuteronomy, Mr Mistoffelees and many other cats, under the name of 'Old Possum'. In 1981 Eliot's poems were set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber as Cats which went on to become the longest-running Broadway musical in history. 'If cats, witchy or not, are your child's thing don't miss the new Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.' The Times 'A lovely edition of an old favourite . . . it will be enjoyed again and again.' Carousel 'Classic cat poems . . . are given a delightful new look.' LoveReading4Kids

'That crown which he set on his lifetime's effort.' Ted Hughes

Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T. S. Eliot's career as a poet. This edition is based on the design made by Giovanni Mardersteig for his letterpress edition of 1960 and marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of its first publication in the UK by Faber & Faber in 1944.

'Throughout these poems there is also the invention of new rhythms, of unimagined possibilities in the movement of language . . . He is perhaps more original and inventive in rhythm than any other poet in English.' Delmore Schwartz

'The most original contribution to poetry that has been made in our time.' Edwin Muir

'Each year Eliot's presence reasserts itself at a deeper level, to an audience that is surprised to find itself more chastened, more astonished, more humble.' Ted Hughes Poet, dramatist, critic and editor, T. S. Eliot was one of the defining figures of twentieth-century poetry. This edition of Collected Poems 1909-1962 includes his verse from Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) to Four Quartets (1943), and includes such literary landmarks as The Waste Land and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.

This superb anthology by T. S. Eliot features The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, as well as a selection of other works from the poet's early career. The titular poem is steeped heavily in the Renaissance era literature with which T. S. Eliot was highly appreciative. The monologue is strongly inspired by readings of Dante Alighieri and William Shakespeare, poets whom deeply impacted Eliot during his youth and which he read meticulously. A work whose emotions include longing and regret, we hear Prufrock lament the missed opportunities and morose reflections of mortality which occupy his melancholic mind. For its eclectic embrace of past works in a monologue bursting with emotive depth, Prufrock was lauded as a triumphant work of the Modernist era. T. S. Eliot gained ample fame as a young literary, and would go on to author several other landmark poems throughout his life.

PERHAPS THE FINEST POETRY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

T.S. Eliot's position in the literature of the world is unmistakable, largely due to the poems contained within this volume.

An American who moved to England, Eliot wrote poems reflecting a deep scholarship and also caught the mood and flavor of a very new time -- all of these poems (and they're the bulk of the work Eliot did in his lifetime) come from the years just after World War I. Clearly and observably, these poems captured the essence of the hour -- in a very real way, they mark the beginning of a new literary era.

Here are three of Eliot's first published volumes of poetry which first appeared in journals, sponsored partly by the famous poet Ezra Pound.

"Prufrock and Other Observations" published in 1917 contains the poet's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

"Poems," published in 1920, includes "Sweeney and the Nightingales."

"The Waste Land," published in 1922 and containing a fascinating "Notes" is perhaps the poet's most compelling piece.

Reading all these works together, however, creates a remarkable context that expands the experience of encountering any of these poems individually.

April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain . . . Published in 1922, The Waste Land was the most revolutionary poem of its time, offering a devastating vision of modern civilisation which has lost none of its power as we enter a new century.

Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) is a collection of poems by T.S. Eliot. Published following the successful appearance of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Prufrock and Other Observations established Eliot's reputation as a leading English poet and pioneering literary Modernist. Opening with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the collection begins with an invocation of Dante, whom Eliot saw as an important innovator of a polyphonic, referential poetry capable of interrogating and dramatizing the construction and representation of the self. The poem is written from the perspective of a repressed, despairing middle-aged man who meditates on his relationships with women and the regrets he has accumulated with age. In "Preludes," a poem of urban malaise, Eliot "thinks of all the hands / That are raising dingy shades / In a thousand furnished rooms," and reaches for an understanding of the world as "some infinitely gentle / Infinitely suffering thing." Other poems include "Morning at the Window," another brief vision of city life, "The Boston Evening Transcript," a satirical reverie on time and community, and "Cousin Nancy," a humorous lyric celebrating Miss Nancy Ellicott, who unabashedly "smoked, / And danced all the modern dances. Both personal and universal, global in scope and intensely insular, Eliot's poetry changed the course of literary history, inspiring countless poets and establishing his reputation as one of the foremost artists of his generation. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of T.S. Eliot's Prufrock and Other Observations is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

The Waste Land (1922) is a poem by T.S. Eliot. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Eliot took a leave of absence from his job at a London bank to stay with his wife Vivienne at the coastal town of Margate. He worked on the poem during these months before showing an early draft to Ezra Pound, who helped edit the poem toward publication. The Waste Land, dedicated to Pound, includes hundreds of quotations of and allusions to such figures as Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Saint Augustine, Chaucer, Baudelaire, and Whitman, to name only a few. Divided into five sections-"The Burial of the Dead;" "A Game of Chess;" "The Fire Sermon;" "Death by Water;" and "What the Thunder Said"-The Waste Land is a complex poem that translates Eliot's fragile emotional state and increasing dissatisfaction with married life into an apocalyptic vision of postwar England. The poem begins with a meditation on despair before moving to a polyphonic narration by figures on the theme. The third section focuses on death and denial through the lens of eastern and western religions, using Saint Augustine as a prominent figure. Eliot then moves from a brief lyric poem to an apocalyptic conclusion, declaring: "He who was living is now dead / We who were living are now dying / With a little patience." Both personal and universal, global in scope and intensely insular, The Waste Land changed the course of literary history, inspiring countless poets and establishing Eliot's reputation as one of the foremost artists of his generation. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

As a poet, editor and essayist, T. S. Eliot was one of the defining figures of twentieth century poetry. This selection, which was made by Eliot himself, includes many of his most celebrated works, including The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land. Other volumes in this series: Auden, Betjemen, Plath, Hughes and Yeats.

'The cat himself knows and will never confess...' To celebrate Old Possum's 75th anniversary we have commissioned lively new illustrations from Rebecca Ashdown for T. S. Eliot's original book of Practical Cats. Featuring Macavity, the Mystery Cat; Mr Mistofelees, the Original Conjuring Cat; Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer and all the gang, this is a must for every child's bookshelf and is a great companion to the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage show.

A stunning new gift edition of this much-loved classic, with the celebrated black-and-white illustrations by Edward Gorey. Cats! Some are sane, and some are mad. Some are good, and some are bad . . . The whimsical 1982 Old Possum's illustrations have been lovingly restored and are showcased in this beautiful new poetry edition, perfect for children and Eliot aficionados alike. These lovable cat poems were written by T. S. Eliot for his godchildren and continue to delight children and grown-ups. The collection inspired the musical Cats!, and features Macavity, Mr Mistofelees and Growltiger!

In this series, a contemporary poet advocates a poet of the past or present whom they have particularly admired. By their selection of verses and by the personal and critical reactions they express, the selectors offer intriguing insight into their own work.