The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems

I was given the new Eliot edition (both volumes) for my birthday. Of course I haven’t read it through, but I dip into it constantly and find it quite enthralling. The editors have turned up masses of fascinating background material, hardly any of which I knew. But there are many peculiarities about the edition and I wish they had given us a proper Introduction explaining and justifying their policy.The distribution between the two volumes seems strange. Surely Old Possum and the Anabasis translation are part of the canon and so should be in the first volume? And why split the uncollected material into Uncollected poems and Other verses, across the two volumes? It seems to be that the Uncollected poems were at least potentially publishable, and indeed some were published, whereas the Other Verses were only ever intended as occasional verse for a private audience, but surely they should say so? And why break up the groupings of Poems written in early youth, Inventions of the March Hare and, possibly even Valerie’s Own Book?Then, when an edition goes into more than one volume, it is more usual to put the textual notes with the text in the first volume and the annotations in the second volume, so that the reader can have both volumes open with the text and its commentary at the same time. Singleton’s Dante does this, and many other editions I could name.The textual notes also seem to me to go into unnecessary detail about early versions and rejected drafts. Of course some of these are important, but they risk getting lost among crowds of minor variants. And rejected passages are printed in with the textual notes, while the commentaries on them are included with those on the poems as published. Following the annotations to The Waste Land or Little Gidding becomes really hard.But I was really pleased to see the line about the ivory men restored to The Waste Land, also the extra line in The Hollow Men. I am sorry they did not put in their text the line dropped from Little Gidding 19^20 variant, note on page 1000, which Helen Gardner wanted restored. I agree with her, and think the textual evidence for omitting it not much stronger than that for dropping the line from The Hollow Men. I was pleased to see the Waste Land composite, finally doing in English what the Italian translation of the poems has had for years.The annotations themselves, while often valuable and illuminating, and scooping up a great deal from earlier commentaries, sometimes seem reluctant to clinch the points at issue. In Sweeney among the nightingales, line 8, I looked for the note on ‘hornèd gate’, as I was interested to see, not only that Eliot was alluding to Virgil, which I knew, but whether there was more to say about it. Instead I am referred to a note on the Waste Land composite which I eventually found on page 662. I wonder how many readers managed to find their way there.In Ash Wednesday II, ‘Lady, three white leopards’ etc, I was delighted to see TSE’s reply to Charles Williams on 22 May 1930 (foot of page 741). Williams’ own very polite letter of 17 May, quoted in Alice Mary Hadfield’s biography, had asked ‘whether there were any – well, say, allusion in the “three Leopards” or the “unicorns dragging the gilded hearse” that one would perhaps be happier for recognizing’. Actually TSE’s reply should be a classic example of a poet either refusing to tell, or indeed not knowing, what his own work meant. I don’t even think that his own explanation in a letter of 1937, also cited, is correct. The best explanation I have seen is by Dwight Longenecker at [...]In Burnt Norton I was pleased to see it noted that Eliot knew, because he reissued, both the Moberly and Jourdain An Adventure and Dunne’s An experiment with time, at the head of page 905, but there is no note on line 4: ‘If all time is eternally present’, along the lines of: ‘An Adventure purports to give an account of when two women who visited Versailles in the early twentieth century appeared to find themselves back in the eighteenth; Dunne explores the possibility of dreams of precognition, which appear to show that the future can be already knowable. The two taken together suggest that time is an illusion’. On the subject of the mysterious ‘they’ at line 30, Eliot’s own account of Kipling’s story (page 488 top) is evasive. The ‘They’ of the story are specifically ghosts of dead children. The editors should have said so. I think one of the meanings they have in Burnt Norton is that the ‘they’ are the children that Eliot and his unnamed companion (whom we learned from Peter Ackroyd was based on Emily Hale) never had.

For anyone who has read Eliot's poetry and wondered if they might have missed some of the references and layers of meaning (in other words, anyone who has ever read Eliot’s poetry), this volume is a godsend. The depth of research, drawing on Eliot’s letters, articles, audio recordings, and innumerable other sources, is breathtaking, and every page in the annotations includes some gems of interest or insight.Two volumes have been published, but if you can only afford one, this book (Volume 1) is the one to get. It includes everything in Eliot’s own edition of the Collected Poems (including, of course, The Waste Land and Four Quartets), followed by uncollected poems intended for publication and an editorial composite of The Waste Land based on Eliot’s drafts. The second volume has the cat poems, Eliot’s translation of St-John Perse’s Anabase, and the informal and “improper” verse, such as Ode to a Roman Coot (a parody of Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale). Volume 2 also contains the textual history of the poems in both volumes, including variant readings from drafts and different printings (important, but more for the scholar than the casual reader).The annotations in Volume 1 are printed in a separate 900-page “commentary” section which comprises the bulk of this massive book. Each annotation begins with the line number, followed by the phrase or line being commented on (printed in bold), then the notes, which may be a line or two of explication, a quote from another poem or book that Eliot is referencing, or even a small essay. The commentary is highly readable, and if you know the poems quite well already, it’s a lot of fun just to browse through it.I have only begun to explore this book, but even in a short time it’s given me a new appreciation and enjoyment of Eliot’s verse. Highly recommended.

Well designed Kindle edition of this fascinating & compendious collection of Eliot’s work. Included are poems which reveal playful, intimate aspects of one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century, with gratifyingly scholarly notes by eminent critics for literary nerds. It’s a remarkable book

This is a magnificently produced volume: a thing of beauty to hold in your hand. The paper is of excellent quality and the hardback is very well bound. The major poems are all here and the notes are absolutely first class, the product of a decade or more of work by the editors. This will remain the definitive edition of TS Eliot for the conceivable future. The second volume has the publication history of all the poems and the Cats poems; I have only bought Volume 1. Absolutely indispensable.I

i wasn't expecting such a large volume but it is so interesting. i love poetry; it has different meanings for different people. i'm enjoying dipping in and out and look forward to volume 2

Great book but as you can see in the pictures it has scuff marks around the edges. Was meant to be a present but looks secondhand. Not ideal

This was a present for someone who read English at Cambridge and he was delighted by both volumes and the textual analysis.Amazon sent me some of the poems onto my Kindle and I was enraptured as well. So kept a second copy of this volume which I had somehow ordered in error.

A truly fabulous edition whose notes are quite astonishing. Unfortunately it arrived damaged as the book was just shoved in a large box with no supporting packaging so it rolled around. The cover got ripped and the corners were bumped. Such a shame!

Excellent Book!

The physical quality of the book is great. The selected poems were exactly what I'd wanted. One could get lost trying to pick which compendium. I wanted plenty of decipherable commentary The Four Quartets and The Waste Land. Got it!

Très beau volume, très complet.

Great book.

Good experience 👍