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.

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.

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.

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.

Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, Poetry Foundation, Chicago Richard J. Finneran Award, Society for Textual Scholarship Best Scholarly Edition Award, Modernist Studies Association The Poems of T. S. Eliot is the authoritative edition of one of our greatest poets, scrupulously edited by Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue. It provides, for the first time, 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. To accompany Eliot's poems, Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue have provided a commentary that illuminates the creative activity that came to constitute each poem, calling upon drafts, correspondence and other original materials to provide a vivid account of the poet's working processes, his reading, his influences and his revisions. 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 second volume opens with the two books of poems of other kinds that he issued, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and his translation of Perse's Anabase, moving then to verses privately circulated as informal or improper or clubmanlike. Each of these sections is accompanied by its respective commentary, and then, pertaining to the entire edition, there is a comprehensive textual history recording variants both manuscript and published. 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.

'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.

'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

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.

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 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.

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.

This critical edition establishes a new text of the Collected Poems 1909-1962, rectifying accidental omissions and errors. As well as the masterpieces, it contains the poems of Eliot's youth which were rediscovered only decades later, others that circulated privately during his lifetime, and love poems from his final years, written for his wife Valerie Eliot. Calling upon Eliot's critical writings, as well as his drafts, letters and other original materials, Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue have provided a commentary which illuminates the imaginative life of each poem.

When the New York Public Library announced in October 1968 that its Berg Collection had acquired the original manuscript of The Waste Land, one of the most puzzling mysteries of twentieth-century literature was solved. The manuscript was not lost, as had been believed, but had remained among the papers of John Quinn, Eliot's friend and adviser, to whom the poet had sent it in 1922. If the discovery of the manuscript was startling, its content was even more so, because the published version of The Waste Land was considerably shorter than the original. How it was reduced and edited is clearly revealed on the manuscript through the handwritten notes of Ezra Pound, of Eliot's first wife, Vivien, and of Eliot himself. In order that this material might be widely available for study, the poet's widow Mrs Valerie Eliot prepared the present edition, in 1971, in which each page of the original manuscript was reproduced in facsimile, with a clear transcript facing pages. Mrs Eliot also included an illuminating introduction, explanatory notes and cross-references, together with the text of the first published version of The Waste Land, thus completing the evolution of the most influential poem in modern literature. To mark the centenary of the original poem, and celebrate fifty years of the facsimile, Eliot's original pages are published here in the startling vivacity of full colour for the first time. The present edition reissues, with corrections, of the text of the 1980 reprint, and includes an appendix of original materials not previously made available.

Poet, dramatist, critic and editor, T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was one of the defining figures of twentieth-century poetry. This edition of The Complete Poems and Plays, published for the first time in paperback, includes all of his verse and work for stage, from Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) to Four Quartets (1943), and includes such literary landmarks as The Waste Land, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and Murder in the Cathedral.

Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T.S. Eliot's career as a poet. While containing some of the most musical and unforgettable passages in twentieth-century poetry, its four parts, 'Burnt Norton', 'East Coker', 'The Dry Salvages' and 'Little Gidding', present a rigorous meditation on the spiritual, philosophical and personal themes which preoccupied the author. It was the way in which a private voice was heard to speak for the concerns of an entire generation, in the midst of war and doubt, that confirmed it as an enduring masterpiece.

'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!

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

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. The first poem in Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is a brilliant introduction to the fabulous world of Cats, featuring names such as Bombalurina and Munkustrap - made famous by the recent film! The seventh gorgeous Cats picture book with lively and colourful illustrations by Arthur Robins. Perfect for reading aloud, singing or performing!