T.S. Eliot TLS Dated 1 Month After Shutting Down "The Criterion," Returning Former Student's Unused

T.S. Eliot
[London, England], February 13, 1939
T.S. Eliot TLS Dated 1 Month After Shutting Down "The Criterion," Returning Former Student's Unused Poetry
TLS

A 1p typed letter signed by Thomas Sterns Eliot (1888-1965), the British poet, playwright, and publisher, as "T.S. Eliot" at lower right. February 13, 1939. [London, England.] Typed on a single leaf of business stationery with a "Faber / & Faber Ltd Publishers" large, stylized, and bicolor letterhead, with Eliot's name listed on the masthead. Expected transmittal folds, with isolated chips and closed edge tears, some of which have been repaired with tape verso. Overall toning. Else very good with a dark and bold signature. 8.125" x 10".

Eliot wrote this letter to one of his former students from Harvard University, Sherman Conrad. Conrad had likely taken one of the courses which Eliot had offered while serving as the Charles Eliot Norton professor at Harvard from 1932-1933, when Eliot gave lectures on poetry from the Shakespearean to the Modern eras. Conrad, born in Buffalo, New York in 1911, had already published free verse poetry and literary criticism in several issues of "Poetry: A Magazine of Verse" in the 1930s. Eliot had intended to publish some of Conrad's work in the literary magazine which Eliot had founded and edited, "The Criterion," but unfortunately, the imprint had folded the previous month.

Eliot wrote in part:

"I am returning gradually all the contributions to the Criterion which had held in the hope of eventually publishing. Accordingly, here are your poems… " [not included in this lot]

Eliot's "The Criterion" had enriched and invigorated European literary discussion during its publication from 1922-1939, but its publisher Faber & Faber had made the difficult decision to shut it down with the prospect of World War II looming. Circulation had already fallen off considerably since its 1920s heyday, and there was widespread concern that wartime privations would kill off the magazine anyway. T.S. Eliot served as an editor at Faber & Faber between 1925 and his death in 1965.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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8.125" x 10"