Editing T. S. Eliot (section)

==Life==
===Early life and education===
The [[Eliot family (America)|Eliots]] were a [[Boston Brahmin]] family with roots in [[England]] and [[New England]]. Eliot's paternal grandfather, [[William Greenleaf Eliot]], had moved to [[St. Louis]], Missouri,<ref name=EB/><ref>{{cite book |last=Bush |first=Ronald |title=T. S. Eliot: The Modernist in History |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=New York |year=1991 |page=72 |isbn=978-0-52139-074-3}}</ref> to establish a [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] Christian church there. His father, [[Henry Ware Eliot]], was a successful businessman, president and treasurer of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company in St Louis. His mother, [[Charlotte Champe Stearns]], who wrote poetry, was a [[social worker]], then a new profession in the U.S. Eliot was the last of six surviving children. Known to family and friends as Tom, he was the namesake of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Stearns. Eliot lived in St. Louis, Missouri, for the first 16 years of his life at the house on [[Locust Street (St. Louis)|Locust Street]] where he was born. After going away to school in 1905, he returned to St. Louis only for vacations and visits. Despite moving away from the city, Eliot wrote to a friend that "Missouri and [[Mississippi River|the Mississippi]] have made a deeper impression on me than any other part of the world."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/LiterarySt.Louis|title=Literary St. Louis|publisher=Associates of St. Louis University Libraries, Inc. and Landmarks Association of St. Louis, Inc.|year=1969}}</ref>

Eliot's childhood love of literature can be traced to several factors. First, he had to overcome physical limitations as a child. Struggling from a congenital double [[inguinal hernia]], he could not participate in many physical activities and thus was prevented from socialising with his peers. As he was often isolated, his love for literature developed. Once he learned to read, the young boy immediately became obsessed with books, favouring tales of savage life, the Wild West, or [[Mark Twain]]'s ''[[Tom Sawyer]]''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Worthen|first=John|title=T.S. Eliot: A Short Biography|year=2009|publisher=Haus Publishing|location=London|page=9}}</ref> In his memoir about Eliot, his friend Robert Sencourt comments that the young Eliot "would often curl up in the window-seat behind an enormous book, setting the drug of dreams against the pain of living."<ref>{{cite book|last=Sencourt|first=Robert|title=T.S. Eliot, A Memoir|year=1971|publisher=Garnstone Limited|location=London|page=18}}</ref> Secondly, Eliot credited his hometown with fuelling his literary vision: "It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one's childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New York, or London."<ref>Letter to Marquis Childs quoted in ''[[St. Louis Post Dispatch]]'' (15 October 1930) and in the address "American Literature and the American Language" delivered at [[Washington University in St. Louis]] (9 June 1953), published in Washington University Studies, ''New Series: Literature and Language'', no. 23 (St. Louis: Washington University Press, 1953), pg. 6.</ref>

From 1898 to 1905, Eliot attended [[Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School|Smith Academy]], the boys college preparatory division of [[Washington University in St. Louis|Washington University]], where his studies included [[Ancient Greek]], [[Latin]], [[French language| French]], and [[German language| German]]. He began to write poetry when he was 14, under the influence of [[Edward FitzGerald (poet)|Edward Fitzgerald]]'s translation of the ''[[Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam]].'' He said the results were gloomy and despairing and he destroyed them.<ref name="hall interview"/> His first published poem, "A Fable For Feasters", was written as a school exercise and was published in the ''Smith Academy Record'' in February 1905.<ref name=Gallup>{{cite book|first=Donald|last=Gallup|title=T.S. Eliot: A Bibliography|publisher=Harcourt, Brace & World|location=New York City|date=1969|asin=B000TM4Z00|page=195|edition=A Revised and Extended}}</ref> Also published there in April 1905 was his oldest surviving poem in manuscript, an untitled lyric, later revised and reprinted as "Song" in ''[[The Harvard Advocate]]''.<ref name=earlyyouth>{{cite book|first=T. S.|last=Eliot|title=Poems Written in Early Youth|editor-first=John Davy|editor-last=Hayward|editor-link=John Davy Hayward|publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]]|location=New York City|date=1967|pages=33–34}}</ref> He published three short stories in 1905, "Birds of Prey", "A Tale of a Whale" and "The Man Who Was King". The last mentioned story reflected his exploration of the [[Igorot people|Igorot Village]] while visiting the [[1904 St. Louis World's Fair]].<ref>{{cite journal|first=Tatsushi|last=Narita|title=The Young T. S. Eliot and Alien Cultures: His Philippine Interactions|journal=[[The Review of English Studies]]|volume=45|issue=180|date=November 1994|pages=523–525|doi=10.1093/res/XLV.180.523}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Tatsushi|last=Narita|title=T. S. Eliot, The World Fair of St. Louis and "Autonomy"|publisher=Kougaku Shuppan|location=Nagoya, Japan|date=2013|isbn=9784903742212|pages=9–104}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Ronald|last=Bush|chapter=The Presence of the Past: Ethnographic Thinking/ Literary Politics|editor1-first=Elzar|editor1-last=Barkan|editor2-first=Ronald|editor2-last=Bush|title=Prehistories of the Future|publisher=[[Stanford University Press]]|location=Stanford, California|date=1995|pages=3–5; 25–31}}</ref> His interest in [[indigenous peoples]] thus predated his anthropological studies at [[Harvard]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Marsh |first1=Alex |last2=Daumer |first2=Elizabeth |date=2005 |title=Pound and T. S. Eliot |magazine=[[American Literary Scholarship]] |page=182}}</ref>

Following graduation from Smith Academy, Eliot attended [[Milton Academy]] in [[Massachusetts]] for a preparatory year, where he met [[Scofield Thayer]], who later published ''[[The Waste Land]]''. He studied at Harvard College from 1906 to 1909, earning a Bachelor of Arts in an elective programme similar to comparative literature in 1909 and a Master of Arts in English literature the following year.<ref name="english.illinois.edu" /><ref name=EB/> Because of his year at Milton Academy, Eliot was allowed to earn his Bachelor of Arts after three years instead of the usual four.<ref>{{Cite book|title=T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, 1888–1922|last=Miller|first=James Edwin|publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press|year=2001|isbn=0271027622|location=State College, Pennsylvania|pages=62}}</ref> [[Frank Kermode]] writes that the most important moment of Eliot's undergraduate career was in 1908 when he discovered [[Arthur Symons]]'s ''[[The Symbolist Movement in Literature]]''. This introduced him to [[Jules Laforgue]], [[Arthur Rimbaud]] and [[Paul Verlaine]]. Without Verlaine, Eliot wrote, he might never have heard of [[Tristan Corbière]] and his book ''Les amours jaunes'', a work that affected the course of Eliot's life.<ref name=Kermode/> ''The Harvard Advocate'' published some of his poems and he became lifelong friends with [[Conrad Aiken]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davis |first=Garrick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EckLAQAAMAAJ |title=Praising it New: The Best of the New Criticism |date=2008 |publisher=Swallow Press/Ohio University Press |isbn=978-0-8040-1108-2 |pages=2 |language=en |quote="A year after Eliot moved to London in 1914, he was introduced to Ezra Pound through a mutual friend, Conrad Aiken. Pound and Eliot soon became lifelong friends and literary allies."}}</ref>

After working as a philosophy assistant at Harvard from 1909 to 1910, Eliot moved to Paris where, from 1910 to 1911, he studied philosophy at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]]. He attended lectures by [[Henri Bergson]] and read poetry with [[Alain-Fournier|Henri Alban-Fournier]].<ref name=EB/><ref name=Kermode>Kermode, Frank.|author-link=Frank Kermode "Introduction" to ''The Waste Land and Other Poems'', Penguin Classics, 2003.</ref> From 1911 to 1914, he was back at Harvard studying Indian philosophy and [[Sanskrit]].<ref name=EB/><ref>Perl, Jeffry M., and Andrew P. Tuck. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1399046 "The Hidden Advantage of Tradition: On the Significance of T. S. Eliot's Indic Studies"], ''Philosophy East & West'' V. 35, No. 2, April 1985, pp. 116–131.</ref> While a member of the Harvard Graduate School, Eliot fell in love with [[Emily Hale]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://tseliot.com/foundation/statement-by-t-s-eliot-on-the-opening-of-the-emily-hale-letters-at-princeton/|title=Statement by T. S. Eliot on the opening of the Emily Hale letters at Princeton|website=T. S. Eliot|date=2 January 2020 |language=en-US|access-date=6 January 2020}}</ref> Eliot was awarded a scholarship to [[Merton College, Oxford]], in 1914. He first visited [[Marburg]], Germany, where he planned to take a summer program, but when the [[First World War]] broke out he went to Oxford instead. At the time so many American students attended Merton that the [[Junior Common Room]] proposed a motion "that this society abhors the [[Americanization]] of Oxford". It was defeated by two votes after Eliot reminded the students how much they owed American culture.<ref name=SeymourJones1>Seymour-Jones, Carole. [http://www.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=193222 ''Painted Shadow: The Life of Vivienne Eliot, First Wife of T. S. Eliot'', Knopf Publishing Group, pg. 1]</ref>

Eliot wrote to Conrad Aiken on New Year's Eve 1914: "I hate university towns and university people, who are the same everywhere, with pregnant wives, sprawling children, many books and hideous pictures on the walls [...] Oxford is very pretty, but I don't like to be dead."<ref name=SeymourJones1/> Escaping Oxford, Eliot spent much of his time in [[London]]. This city had a monumental and life-altering effect on Eliot for several reasons, the most significant of which was his introduction to the influential American poet [[Ezra Pound]]. A connection through Aiken resulted in an arranged meeting and on 22 September 1914, Eliot paid a visit to Pound's flat. Pound instantly deemed Eliot "worth watching" and was crucial to Eliot's fledgling career as a poet, as he is credited with promoting Eliot through social events and literary gatherings. Thus, according to biographer John Worthen, during his time in England Eliot "was seeing as little of Oxford as possible". He was instead spending long periods of time in London, in the company of Pound and "some of the modern artists whom the war has so far spared [...] It was Pound who helped most, introducing him everywhere."<ref>{{cite book|last=Worthen|first=John| author-link=John Worthen (literary critic)| title=T.S. Eliot: A Short Biography|year=2009|publisher=Haus Publishing|location=London|pages=34–36}}</ref> In the end, Eliot did not settle at Merton and left after a year. In 1915 he taught English at [[Birkbeck, University of London| Birkbeck College, University of London]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/notable-birkbeckians#:~:text=TS%20Eliot%20(1888%2D1965),a%20short%20time%20in%201915.|title=Notable Birkbeckians|website=Birkbeck|access-date=6 February 2023}}</ref>

In 1916, he completed a doctoral dissertation for Harvard on "Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of [[F. H. Bradley]]", but failed to return for the [[Thesis defence|''viva voce'' examination]].<ref name=EB/><ref>For a reading of the dissertation, see {{Cite journal | last=Brazeal | first=Gregory | title=The Alleged Pragmatism of T.S. Eliot  | journal=[[Philosophy and Literature]] | volume=31  | issue=1 | pages=248–264  | date=Fall 2007 | ssrn=1738642}}</ref>

===Marriage===
[[File:Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot 1920.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot]], passport photograph from 1920]]
Before leaving the US, Eliot had told Emily Hale that he was in love with her. He exchanged letters with her from Oxford during 1914 and 1915, but they did not meet again until 1927.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://blogs.princeton.edu/manuscripts/2017/05/16/sealed-treasure-t-s-eliot-letters-to-emily-hale/|title=Sealed Treasure: T. S. Eliot Letters to Emily Hale|last=Skemer|first=Don|date=16 May 2017|website=PUL Manuscripts News|language=en-US|access-date=6 January 2020}}</ref> In a letter to Aiken late in December 1914, Eliot, aged 26, wrote: "I am very dependent upon women (I mean female society)."<ref>Eliot, T. S. ''The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1, 1898–1922''. p. 75.</ref> Less than four months later, Thayer introduced Eliot to [[Vivienne Haigh-Wood]], a Cambridge [[governess]]. They were married at Hampstead Register Office on 26 June 1915.<ref>[[John Richardson (art historian)|Richardson, John]], ''Sacred Monsters, Sacred Masters''. Random House, 2001, p. 20.</ref>

After a short visit, alone, to his family in the United States, Eliot returned to London and took several teaching jobs, such as lecturing at [[Birkbeck, University of London|Birkbeck College]], [[University of London]]. The philosopher [[Bertrand Russell]] took an interest in Vivienne while the newlyweds stayed in his flat. Some scholars have suggested that she and Russell had an affair, but the allegations were never confirmed.<ref>Seymour-Jones, Carole. ''Painted Shadow: A Life of Vivienne Eliot''. Knopf Publishing Group, 2001, p. 17.</ref>

The marriage seems to have been markedly unhappy, in part because of Vivienne's health problems. In a letter addressed to Ezra Pound, she covers an extensive list of her symptoms, which included a habitually high temperature, [[fatigue (medical)|fatigue]], [[insomnia]], [[migraine]]s, and [[colitis]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Letters of T.S. Eliot: Volume 1, 1898–1922|year=1988|publisher=[[Faber & Faber]]|location=London|page=533}}</ref> This, coupled with apparent mental instability, meant that she was often sent away by Eliot and her doctors for extended periods in the hope of improving her health. As time went on, he became increasingly detached from her.
According to witnesses, both Eliots were frequent complainers of illness, physical and mental, while Eliot would drink excessively and Vivienne is said to have developed a liking for opium and ether, drugs prescribed for medical issues. It is claimed that the couple's wearying behaviour caused some visitors to vow never to spend another evening in the company of both together.<ref name="In the Hyacinth Garden">{{cite journal | url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v25/n07/richard-poirier/in-the-hyacinth-garden | title=In the Hyacinth Garden | journal=London Review of Books | date=3 April 2003 | volume=25 | issue=7 | last1=Poirier | first1=Richard }}</ref>
The couple separated in 1932 and formally separated in 1933, and in 1938 Vivienne's brother, Maurice, had her committed to a mental hospital, against her will, where she remained until her death of heart disease in 1947. When told via a phone call from the asylum that Vivienne had died unexpectedly during the night, Eliot is said to have buried his face in his hands and cried out 'Oh God, oh God.'<ref name="In the Hyacinth Garden"/>

Their relationship became the subject of a 1984 play ''[[Tom & Viv (play)|Tom & Viv]]'', which in 1994 was adapted as a [[Tom & Viv|film of the same name]].

In a private paper written in his sixties, Eliot confessed: "I came to persuade myself that I was in love with Vivienne simply because I wanted to burn my boats and commit myself to staying in England. And she persuaded herself (also under the influence of [Ezra] Pound) that she would save the poet by keeping him in England. To her, the marriage brought no happiness. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came ''The Waste Land''."<ref>Eliot, T. S. ''The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1, 1898–1922.'' London: Faber & Faber. 1988. p. xvii.</ref>

===Teaching, banking, and publishing===
[[File:TSEliotFaberHouse (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|A plaque at [[School of Oriental and African Studies|SOAS]]'s Faber Building, 24 [[Russell Square]], London]]
After leaving Merton, Eliot worked as a schoolteacher, most notably at [[Highgate School]] in London, where he taught French and Latin: his students included [[John Betjeman]].<ref name=EB/> He subsequently taught at the [[Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe]] in [[Buckinghamshire]]. To earn extra money, he wrote book reviews and lectured at evening extension courses at University College London and Oxford. In 1917, he took a position at [[Lloyds Bank]] in London, working on foreign accounts. On a trip to Paris in August 1920 with the artist [[Wyndham Lewis]], he met the writer [[James Joyce]]. Eliot said he found Joyce arrogant, and Joyce doubted Eliot's ability as a poet at the time, but the two writers soon became friends, with Eliot visiting Joyce whenever he was in Paris.<ref>[[Richard Ellmann|Ellmann, Richard]]. ''James Joyce''. pp. 492–495.</ref> Eliot and Wyndham Lewis also maintained a close friendship, leading to Lewis's later making [[Portrait of T. S. Eliot|his well-known portrait painting of Eliot]] in 1938.

[[Charles Whibley]] recommended T. S. Eliot to [[Geoffrey Faber]].<ref name="RK">{{cite book|last1= Kojecky|first1= Roger|title= T. S. Eliot's Social Criticism|url= https://archive.org/details/tseliotssocialcr00koje/page/55|year= 1972|publisher= Faber & Faber|isbn= 978-0571096923|page= [https://archive.org/details/tseliotssocialcr00koje/page/55 55]}}</ref> In 1925 Eliot left Lloyds to become a director in the publishing firm [[Faber and Gwyer]] (later [[Faber & Faber]]), where he remained for the rest of his career.<ref name="Harding2011">{{cite book|author=Jason Harding|title=T. S. Eliot in Context|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BDCJkvyg164C&pg=PA73|access-date=26 October 2017|date=31 March 2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-50015-9|page=73}}</ref><ref name="Pinion1986">{{cite book|author=F B Pinion|title=A T.S. Eliot Companion: Life and Works|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oJKvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA32|access-date=26 October 2017|date=27 August 1986|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-1-349-07449-5|page=32}}</ref> At Faber & Faber, he was responsible for publishing distinguished English poets, including [[W. H. Auden]], [[Stephen Spender]], [[Charles Madge]] and [[Ted Hughes]].<ref name="learner.org">T.S. Eliot. ''Voices and Visions Series''. New York Center of Visual History: PBS, 1988.[http://www.learner.org/resources/series57.html?pop=yes&pid=595]</ref>

===Conversion to Anglicanism and British citizenship===
[[File:T.S. Eliot house.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Faber & Faber]] building where Eliot worked from 1925 to 1965; the commemorative plaque is under the right-hand arch.]]
On 29 June 1927, Eliot converted from [[Unitarianism]] to [[Anglicanism]], and in November that year he took [[British nationality law|British citizenship]], thereby renouncing his United States citizenship in the event he had not officially done so previously.<ref>{{cite web | last=Boyagoda | first=Randy | title=T.S. Eliot, American | website=The American Conservative | date=21 July 2015 | url=https://www.theamericanconservative.com/t-s-eliot-american/}}</ref>
He became a [[churchwarden]] of his parish church, [[St Stephen's, Gloucester Road]], London, and a life member of the [[Society of King Charles the Martyr]].<ref>Plaque on interior wall of Saint Stephen's</ref><ref>Obituary notice in ''Church and King'', Vol. XVII, No. 4, 28 February 1965, pg. 3.</ref> He specifically identified as [[Anglo-Catholic]], proclaiming himself "[[Classicism|classicist]] in literature, [[royalist]] in politics, and anglo-catholic {{sic}} in religion".<ref>Specific quote is "The general point of view [of the essays] may be described as classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and anglo-catholic {{sic}} in religion", in preface by T. S. Eliot to ''For [[Lancelot Andrewes]]: Essays on style and order'' (1929).</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20081215082548/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,756146,00.html Books: Royalist, Classicist, Anglo-Catholic], ''Time'', 25 May 1936.</ref>

About 30 years later Eliot commented on his religious views that he combined "a Catholic cast of mind, a Calvinist heritage, and a Puritanical temperament".<ref>{{cite book|last=Eliot|first=T. S.|title=On Poetry and Poets|year=1986|publisher=Faber & Faber|location=London|isbn=978-0571089833|page=[https://archive.org/details/onpoetrypoets00elio/page/209 209]|url=https://archive.org/details/onpoetrypoets00elio/page/209}}</ref> He also had wider spiritual interests, commenting that "I see the path of progress for modern man in his occupation with his own self, with his inner being" and citing [[Goethe]] and [[Rudolf Steiner]] as exemplars of such a direction.<ref>Radio interview on 26 September 1959, ''Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk'', as cited in {{cite book|last=Wilson|first=Colin|title=Beyond the Occult|publisher=Bantam Press|location=London|year=1988|pages=335–336}}</ref>

One of Eliot's biographers, [[Peter Ackroyd]], commented that "the purposes of [Eliot's conversion] were two-fold. One: the [[Church of England]] offered Eliot some hope for himself, and I think Eliot needed some resting place. But secondly, it attached Eliot to the English community and English culture."<ref name="learner.org"/>

===Separation and remarriage===
By 1932, Eliot had been contemplating a separation from his wife for some time. When Harvard offered him the [[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures|Charles Eliot Norton professorship]] for the 1932–1933 academic year, he accepted and left Vivienne in England. Upon his return, he arranged for a formal separation from her, avoiding all but one meeting with her between his leaving for America in 1932 and her death in 1947. Vivienne was committed to the Northumberland House mental hospital in Woodberry Down, [[Manor House, London#Early development|Manor House, London]], in 1938, and remained there until she died. Although Eliot was still legally her husband, he never visited her.<ref>Seymour-Jones, Carole. ''Painted Shadow: A Life of Vivienne Eliot''. Constable 2001, p. 561.</ref> From 1933 to 1946 Eliot had a close emotional relationship with [[Emily Hale]]. Eliot later destroyed Hale's letters to him, but Hale donated Eliot's to Princeton University Library where they were [[List of sealed archives|sealed]], following Eliot's and Hale's wishes, for 50 years after both had died, until 2020.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/02/ts-eliot-hidden-love-letters-reveal-intense-heartbreaking-affair-emily-hale|title=TS Eliot's hidden love letters reveal intense, heartbreaking affair|last=Helmore|first=Edward|date=2 January 2020|work=The Guardian|access-date=6 January 2020|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> When Eliot heard of the donation he deposited his own account of their relationship with Harvard University to be opened whenever the Princeton letters were.<ref name=":1" />

From 1938 to 1957 Eliot's public companion was [[Mary Trevelyan]] of London University, who wanted to marry him and left a detailed memoir.<ref>Bush, Ronald, ''T. S. Eliot: The Modernist in History'' 1991, p. 11: "Mary Trevelyan, then aged forty, was less important for Eliot's writing. Where Emily Hale and Vivienne were part of Eliot's private phantasmagoria, Mary Trevelyan played her part in what was essentially a public friendship. She was Eliot's escort for nearly twenty years until his second marriage in 1957. A brainy woman, with the bracing organizational energy of a [[Florence Nightingale]], she propped the outer structure of Eliot's life, but for him she, too, represented .."</ref><ref>Surette, Leon, ''The Modern Dilemma: Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, and Humanism'', 2008, p. 343: "Later, sensible, efficient Mary Trevelyan served her long stint as support during the years of penitence. For her their friendship was a commitment; for Eliot quite peripheral. His passion for immortality was so commanding that it allowed him to ..."</ref><ref>Haldar, Santwana, ''T. S. Eliot – A Twenty-first Century View'' 2005, p. xv: "Details of Eliot's friendship with Emily Hale, who was very close to him in his Boston days and with Mary Trevelyan, who wanted to marry him and left a riveting memoir of Eliot's most inscrutable years of fame, shed new light on this period in...."</ref>

From 1946 to 1957, Eliot shared a flat at 19 [[Carlyle Mansions]], Chelsea, with his friend [[John Davy Hayward]], who collected and managed Eliot's papers, styling himself "Keeper of the Eliot Archive".<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/9670663/Valerie-Eliot.html "Valerie Eliot"], ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 11 November 2012. Retrieved 1 July 2017.</ref><ref>[[Lyndall Gordon|Gordon, Lyndall]]. ''T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life''. Norton 1998, p. 455.</ref> Hayward also collected Eliot's pre-Prufrock verse, commercially published after Eliot's death as ''Poems Written in Early Youth''. When Eliot and Hayward separated their household in 1957, Hayward retained his collection of Eliot's papers, which he bequeathed to [[King's College, Cambridge]], in 1965.

On 10 January 1957, at the age of 68, Eliot married [[Esmé Valerie Fletcher]], who was 30. In contrast to his first marriage, Eliot knew Fletcher well, as she had been his secretary at Faber & Faber since August 1949. They kept their wedding secret; the ceremony was held in St Barnabas Church, [[Kensington]], London,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/tto/archive/frame/article/1957-01-11/10/3.html|title=Marriage. Mr T. S. Eliot and Miss E. V. Fletcher|date=11 January 1957|work=[[The Times]]|access-date=3 March 2020|issue=53736|page=10|issn=0140-0460}}</ref> at 6:15&nbsp;am with virtually no one in attendance other than his wife's parents. In the early 1960s, by then in failing health, Eliot worked as an editor for the [[Wesleyan University Press]], seeking new poets in Europe for publication. After Eliot's death, Valerie dedicated her time to preserving his legacy, by editing and annotating ''The Letters of T. S. Eliot'' and a facsimile of the draft of ''The Waste Land''.<ref>Gordon, Jane. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E2D6143FF935A25753C1A9639C8B63&sel=&spon=&pagewanted=all "The University of Verse"], ''The New York Times'', 16 October 2005; [http://www.wesleyan.edu/virtualtour/timeline.html Wesleyan University Press timeline] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101201022906/http://wesleyan.edu/virtualtour/timeline.html |date=1 December 2010 }}, 1957.</ref> Valerie Eliot died on 9 November 2012 at her home in London.<ref>{{cite web|last=Lawless|first=Jill|url=https://news.yahoo.com/t-eliots-widow-valerie-eliot-dies-86-163116521.html|title=T.S. Eliot's widow Valerie Eliot dies at 86|publisher=Associated Press via Yahoo News|date=11 November 2012|access-date=12 November 2012}}</ref>

Eliot had no children with either of his wives.

===Death and honours===

[[File:T S Eliot 3 Kensington Court Gardens blue plaque.jpg|thumb|Blue plaque, 3 Kensington Court Gardens, Kensington, London, home from 1957 until his death in 1965]]
Eliot died of [[emphysema]] at his home in [[Kensington]] in London, on 4 January 1965,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Grantq|first1=Michael|title=T.S. Eliot: The Critical Heritage, Volume 1|date=1997|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=9780415159470|page=55}}</ref> and was cremated at [[Golders Green Crematorium]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=McSmith|first1=Andy|title=Famous names whose final stop was Golders Green crematorium|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/famous-names-whose-final-stop-was-golders-green-crematorium-1921813.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/famous-names-whose-final-stop-was-golders-green-crematorium-1921813.html |archive-date=26 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=3 January 2018|newspaper=The Independent|date=16 March 2010}}</ref> In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were taken to [[St Michael and All Angels' Church, East Coker]], the village in Somerset from which his Eliot ancestors had emigrated to America.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.premier.org.uk/Topics/Culture/Literature/National-Poetry-Day-on-Premier-2013|title=National Poetry Day on Premier 2013 – Premier|last=Premier|year=2014|work=Premier|access-date=27 February 2018}}</ref> A wall plaque in the church commemorates him with a quotation from his poem ''East Coker'': "In my beginning is my end. In my end is my beginning."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Jenkins|first1=Simon|title=East Coker does not deserve the taint of TS Eliot's narcissistic gloom|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/apr/06/comment.poetry|access-date=3 January 2018|newspaper=The Guardian|date=6 April 2007}}</ref>

In 1967, on the second anniversary of his death, Eliot was commemorated by the placement of a large stone in the floor of [[Poets' Corner]] in London's [[Westminster Abbey]]. The stone, cut by designer [[Reynolds Stone]], is inscribed with his life dates, his [[Order of Merit]], and a quotation from his poem ''[[Little Gidding (poem)|Little Gidding]]'', "the communication / of the dead is tongued with fire beyond / the language of the living."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/thomas-stearns-eliot|title=Thomas Stearns Eliot|publisher=westminster-abbey.org|access-date=1 December 2016}}</ref>

In 1986, a [[blue plaque]] was placed on the apartment block - No. 3 [[Kensington Court Gardens]] - where he lived and died.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://openplaques.org/plaques/500|title=T. S. Eliot Blue Plaque|publisher=openplaques.org|access-date=23 November 2013}}</ref>