Eliot in Special Collections

This page provides links to special collections and archives containing Eliot materials available to researchers.

The collections are arranged in alphabetical order.

---

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale 

The Beinecke has two primary collections of Eliot materials: a collection of letters written by Eliot and the papers and library of Eliot biographer Donald Gallup; the library also holds letters by Eliot located in other collections. These may be best accessed through the Beinecke’s keyword-searchable online database.

For additional information, please contact Timothy Young, Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, or Nancy Kuhl, Curator of Poetry, Yale Collection of American Literature.

The T. S. Eliot Collection contains letters from T. S. Eliot to various individuals, drafts of writings by Eliot, and writings on Eliot by Dame Helen Gardner. Portions of the collection are photocopies and photostats of material held by other repositories.

The Donald Gallup Papers contains correspondence, writings, research files, personal papers, photographs, printed material, and other papers documenting both the professional and personal activities of Donald Gallup as scholarly bibliographer, editor, curator of the Yale Collection of American Literature, and book and manuscript collector on his own account. The majority of the collection consists of Gallup’s own papers, including personal, professional, and editorial correspondence; a small amount of personal papers; research files; and typescripts and galley proofs of many of his publications, including his editions of the journals of Thornton Wilder and several volumes of works by Eugene O’Neill. Correspondents include the authors James Purdy, Sheri Martinelli, and Mary Bernetta Quinn, and the Yale librarian James T. Babb. In addition, the collection contains some of the letters and papers by Modernist writers collected by Gallup personally and donated by him to Yale. The most extensive of these groups is the collection of letters by T. S. Eliot in Group X. Recipients include Arnold Bennett, Richard Cobden-Sanderson, Edgar Jepson, Alida and Harold Monro, Brigit Patmore, John Carroll Perkins, and Donald Gallup himself. Publishers’ correspondence and book contracts of Carl Van Vechten are found in Group V., while Group VII. and Group VIII. contain copies of articles and ephemera by and related to Ezra Pound and a small amount of Pound correspondence. Diaries by Carlotta Monterey O’Neill are located in Group X.

Additionally, the Beinecke is home to Gallup’s personal library, which includes his many personal editions of Eliot’s works.

---

Columbia University Libraries Archival Collections

The Columbia University Libraries Archival Collections contains several collections of manuscripts and papers that include correspondence between T. S. Eliot and the poet Hart Crane, the Cohns of House of Books Bookstore, Columbia professor of English Mark Van Doren, the English Department at Columbia regarding courses related to Eliot’s work, poet and lawyer Melville Cane, scholar Robert Halsband, and scholar Jacques Barzun.

---

The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition

Ronald Schuchard, General Editor

The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot gathers for the first time in one place the collected, uncollected, and unpublished prose of one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century. The result of a multi-year collaboration among Eliot’s Estate; Faber and Faber Ltd.; Johns Hopkins University Press; the Beck Digital Center of Emory University; and the Institute of English Studies, University of London, this eight-volume critical edition dramatically expands access to material that has been restricted or inaccessible in private and institutional collections for almost fifty years.

The fully searchable, integrative edition includes all of Eliot’s collected essays, reviews, lectures, commentaries from The Criterion, and letters to editors, including more than 700 uncollected and 150 unpublished pieces from 1905 to 1965. Other highlights include essays from his student years at Smith Academy and Harvard and his graduate work at Harvard and Oxford, including his doctoral dissertation; unsigned, unidentified essays published in the New Statesman and the Monist; essays and reviews published in the Egoist, Athenaeum, TLS, Dial, Art and Letters; his Clark and Turnbull lectures on metaphysical poetry, Norton Lectures, Page-Barbour Lectures, Boutwood Lectures; unpublished essays, lectures, addresses from various archives; and transcripts of broadcasts, speeches, endorsements, and memorial tributes.

Each item has been textually edited, annotated, and cross-referenced by an international group of leading Eliot scholars, led by Schuchard, a renowned scholar of Eliot and Modernism. The volumes will be released in sequence and published on Project MUSE, with an archival print edition to be published once all eight volumes have been released.

---

Contemporary Literary and Creative Archives, The British Library

For information on the British Library’s holdings, please contact Helen Melody, Lead Curator, Contemporary Literary and Creative Archives at Helen.melody@nullbl.uk.

The British Library has a number of items in its archive and manuscript collections relating to the life and work of T. S. Eliot. The majority of the collections consist of correspondence and other papers sent by Eliot to friends and contemporaries including the Tandy family, Sydney Schiff, Margaret Nason, Robert Waller, and Anne Barbara Ridler.

Add MS 71002–71004: T. S. Eliot Letters

Three volumes of correspondence, etc., of T. S. Eliot and members of the Tandy family: Geoffrey, Doris (Polly), and their three children Richard, Alison, and Anthea; 1934–1965, n.d. Mostly typewritten and signed ‘Possum’ or ‘T. P.’ [Tom Possum], partly printed. Includes photographs and some typewritten copies of Geoffrey Tandy’s replies.

Eliot met Geoffrey Tandy, who worked at the British Museum (Natural History), in the 1930s and was godfather to Anthea. He tested out his cat poems on the Tandy family, and typewritten working drafts of many poems are included in the collection, either interfiled as enclosures or placed together at the end of Add. 71004 if no covering letter has been identified. These versions differ from those published and some have autograph corrections. Purchased from Edward Kidner, Esq., October 1991.

Add MS 74779: T. S. Eliot Correspondence with Margaret Nason

Letters of the poet (b.1888, d.1965) to Margaret Nason of the Bindery Tea Shop, Broadway, Worcestershire, 1939–1964. Mostly signed. The main purpose of the letters was to thank Nason for birthday cakes, but they also mention Emily [possibly Emily Hale, a former lover of Eliot], a talk to the Association of Bookmen of South Wales (f. 10), a production of “Blithe Spirit” (f. 14), his naturalization in 1927 (f. 16), a James Joyce exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1950 (f. 27), the death of Uncle John Perkins (f. 29), a production of Murder at the Old Vic and the return of Robert Donat to the stage (f. 37) and his hospitalization for bronchitis and tachycardia (f. 42). Followed by three letters to Margaret Nason from Esmé Valerie Fletcher, who became Eliot’s second wife in 1957 (ff. 30, 47, 50). Purchased at Phillips; 30 June 2000, ff.53.

Add MS 89044: Letter from T. S. Eliot to Meg Nason

Autograph letter dated London, March 26, 1957, with envelope. Eliot thanks Nason for her letter and invites her to his home for a meal so she can meet Valerie, Eliot’s wife. Purchased at Bloomsbury Auctions, New York, lot 44, June 19, 2008.

Add MS 78907 X: Letters, etc., of T. S. Eliot

Purchased from Dr. R. Schuchard of Heidelberg University, August 2000. Paper; ff. 141–145v.

Add MS 71694: Ewald Osers Correspondence with T. S. Eliot and Ashley Dukes

Correspondence of Ewald Osers (b.1917), translator, with T. S. Eliot (b.1888, d.1965), poet, publisher, and critic, and with Ashley Dukes (b.1885, d.1959), dramatist, critic, theater manager, and dramatic agent to T. S. Eliot, together with Osers’s translation into the German of Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral and related material, including autobiographical notes by Osers; 1945–1995. Mostly signed; partly copies, partly printed, partly typewritten. The correspondence concerns, in the main, Osers’s translation of Murder in the Cathedral; Ashley Dukes’s letters date from the period during which he held the post of Theatre and Music Adviser, Main Headquarters Control Commission for Germany (British Element).

1. ff. 1–20. Correspondence of Ewald Osers with T. S. Eliot and with Ashley Dukes; 1945–1947.

2. ff. 21–76. Translation into German of T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral by Ewald Osers; 1945–1946.

3. ff. 77–114. Letter from Ewald Osers (f. 77) enclosing a copy of T. S. Eliot’s lecture “Cultural Diversity and European Unity” (ff. 78–86) together with the edition of the periodical Review 45 in which it was published (ff. 87–114); 1945.

4 ff. 115–121. Autobiographical notes by Ewald Osers, including his observations on translations of T. S. Eliot’s works into the German; 1995. Purchased from Bloomsbury Book Auctions, 19 July 1995, ff. 121.

Add MS 71106: Letters from T. S. Eliot to Anne Barbara Ridler

Letters from T. S. Eliot (b.1888, d.1965), poet, publisher and critic, to Anne Barbara Ridler (b. 1912), Eliot’s secretary at Faber and Faber 1935–1940 and thereafter literary consultant to and published author of the firm; circa 1937–1960. Autograph and typewritten. The letters, which have occasional annotations by Ridler, include discussion of the works of contemporary authors as well as those of Ridler and Eliot himself. Purchased from Gekoski Books, October 22, 1992.

Add MS 71231: Letters from T. S. Eliot to Robert Waller

Letters from T. S. Eliot (b 1888, d 1965), poet, publisher, and critic, to Robert Ferns Waller (b 1913, d 2005), poet, writer, and radio producer; 1933–1952. Mostly signed. The letters contain Eliot’s comments and advice on literary and personal matters. The sequence includes three letters written on Eliot’s behalf by secretaries at Faber and Faber, and two written to Waller by agents acting for him in his dealings with Eliot, f.33.

Add MS 52918: Schiff Papers, Vol. III (ff. 215)

File of correspondence from Schiff Papers which includes 103 folios of correspondence with Eliot, his first wife, Vivienne, partly on his behalf, and his second wife, Valerie, née Fletcher; 1919–1960, n.d. Partly signed.

Add MS 48974: Koteliansky Papers, Vol. IX: General Correspondence

Correspondence with writers including Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Edward Morgan Forster, 1916–1946, n.d. Eliot’s letters were written as the editor of The Criteron, date from 1923–1927 and are ff. 76–79, 82, 83, 86, 87, 93–107, 109.

Add MS 54157: Watkins Papers, Vol. I

Poems collected in The Ballad of the Mari Lwyd (1941); 1936–1940. The typewritten contents page (f. 1), which is marked up for printing, includes annotations by T. S. Eliot, (ff. ii+171).

Add MS 56356: Douglas Papers, Vol. VI

Letters, etc., addressed to Douglas and his mother; 1936–1965. Autograph, typewritten and airgraph. Some in the French. The writers include Edmund Blunden and T. S. Eliot. Many of the letters, agreements, and accounts relate to the publication of Keith Douglas: Collected Poems, ff.245.

Add MS 57353: Harriet Shaw Weaver Papers, Vol. IX

General correspondence, including letters by, or relating to, members of the Joyce family; 1922–1960. Correspondents include Sylvia Beach, T. S. Eliot, Edmund Gosse, Ezra Pound, H. G. Wells, and Virginia Woolf. Correspondence between Weaver and Eliot partly relating to the author and feminist, Dora Marsden at ff. 63, 106, 110, 149–150, 1919–1946. Partly copy and signed (ff.273).

Add MS 57355: Harriet Shaw Weaver Papers, Vol. XI

Miscellaneous papers, mostly printed; 1913–aft. 1950. ff. 123 with letters from Eliot and press cuttings relating to his work at ff. 32–64, 1914–1931.

Add MS 57361 A: Harriet Shaw Weaver Papers, Vol. XVII A

Publisher’s accounts for “Prufrock” by Eliot, 1917–1922.

Add MS 57726: Patricia Hutchins, Vol. II

Miscellaneous correspondence, mostly relating to Ezra Pound; 1953–1970. Correspondents include T. S. Eliot, F. S. Flint, Augustus John, Oskar Kokoschka, Stephen Spender, and William Carlos Williams. Includes correspondence between Eliot and Hutchins, 1956–1965 (ff. 46–101).

Add MS 59609 D: Frederic Prokosch, Vol. I D

Words for music for “New Hampshire” and “Virginia” by T. S. Eliot; 1934.

Add MS 60665: Strachey Papers (Twentieth-Century Series), Vol. XI

Includes correspondence with Eliot, 1919–1948 (ff. 128–134).

Add MS 63060: Joyce Papers, Vol. I

Correspondence relating to The Letters of James Joyce, eds. Stuart Gilbert and Richard Ellman (3 vols., Faber and Faber, 1957, 1961); 1945–1956. The writers include Nora and Stanislaus Joyce, Frank Budgen, C. P. Curran, T. S. Eliot, and John Slocum. Eliot letters can be found at ff. 12–14v, 16, 21, 33.

Add MS 63061: Joyce Papers, Vol. II

Correspondence relating to the publication of Joyce’s letters to Martha Fleischmann; 1953–1955. Included is a typewritten account (ff. 24–31) by Professor Heinrich Straumann of Joyce’s relationship with Martha Fleischmann, which is printed in Letters, II, pp. 426–431.

Add MS 63063: Joyce Papers, Vol. IV 

Correspondence, etc., with the following, relating to Joyce’s copyrights; 1941–1951.

1. ff. 1–8. Faber and Faber relating to the publication of Introducing James Joyce (1942), a selection of Joyce’s prose with an introduction by T. S. Eliot; 1941–1946.

2. ff. 9–44v. The firm of Munro, Saw and Co., Padraic Colum, T. S. Eliot, Stuart Gilbert and others, relating to the granting of film rights for Ulysses and Exiles; 1947, 1948.

3. ff. 45–113. Edwin R. Armstrong and the above relating to Armstrong’s proposed dramatic recital of Finnegans Wake in America, with (ff. 94-110) a “Discussion of Proposed Treatment” by Armstrong and Colum; 1949–1951.

Mostly typewritten. Includes correspondence between Eliot and Weaver as Joyce’s literary executor at ff. 3, 29, 33-35, 57, 71, 73, 77, 84, 1941–1954.

Add MS 71581: Miscellaneous Letters and Papers

G. Letter of Thomas Stearns Eliot (b.1888, d.1965), poet, publisher and critic, to Mrs. Hans Kurath; June 16, 1932. Purchased from Bloomsbury Book Auctions, July 19, 1995.

In addition to the material described above the Library also holds a number of single letters from Eliot within other collections (including the Poetry Bookshop and Stopes archives). Further information can be found at http://searcharchives.bl.uk.

---

Cornell’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections

The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections includes facsimiles of letters written by Eliot himself, as well as by Valerie Eliot on sundry subjects. For information on the collections, please contact rareref@nullcornell.edu.

Several of their other collections also include correspondence between T. S. Eliot and other authors, predominantly English.

The Ford Madox Ford Collection, [ca. 1850]–1973

The Gail And Stephen Rudin literary autograph collection, 1841–1993

The Wyndham Lewis Collection, 1877–1975

---

Eliot’s Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge

In late 2013 Magdalene College received a bequest of books from Valerie Eliot, wife of T. S. Eliot. A complete list of the books in the bequest can be found here, and are fully catalogued on the University of Cambridge’s LibrarySearch and Newton Catalogues.

The following description of the acquisition was written by M. E. J. Hughes, Director of English Studies and Pepys Librarian, Magdalene College, Cambridge. It was originally published in Time Present, no. 85 (Spring 2015), pp. 8–9; it is reproduced here with permission.

T. S. Eliot enjoyed a long relationship with Magdalene College, Cambridge, and he numbered several fellows among his personal friends—notably the famous literary critic I. A. Richards and his wife Dorothea (the mountaineer Dorothy Pilley), and the First World War ace Francis Turner. Over the years, Eliot preached in the Magdalene College Chapel, was seen a little worse for drink at an annual Samuel Pepys Commemorative Dinner, and became an honorary fellow. In a famous line of succession from Hardy and Kipling, he was elected to the honorary fellowship on April 29, 1939. (Later incumbents were Benjamin Britten, Seamus Heaney, and UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.)

Two years later Eliot wrote to Turner, then the Pepys Librarian, asking whether the College would like to have some manuscripts of his latest poems (“my prose is not worth bothering about”). Earlier materials had gone to the Bodleian and to Eliot House at Harvard. Manuscripts, typescripts, and marked-up proofs of The Dry Salvages were later joined by those of Little Gidding, and these are now housed in the Magdalene Old Library collection. Eliot charmingly thanked the College for accepting the manuscripts, thus reducing the volume of “national pulp.” His splendid Nobel Prize diploma (1948), designed by Bertha Svensson, followed. In late 2013, the collection was further enhanced by a very generous legacy from the late Mrs. Valerie Eliot.

The Valerie Eliot bequest comprises 368 books, most of which were owned by Eliot or given in his lifetime by him to his wife. Mrs. Eliot herself also made a point of collecting foreign editions of her husband’s work. Many of the volumes that arrived in Magdalene in 2013 are translations of Eliot’s writings: the collection includes 215 books and items from journals in 32 different languages apart from English.

A small number of the books are annotated, and perhaps the most interesting of these are various volumes of philosophy by F. H. Bradley and his pupil Harold Joachim (one of Eliot’s tutors at Merton College, Oxford), dating back to the time before the Great War when Eliot was working on his doctoral dissertation Experience and the Objects of Knowledge in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley. A copy of The Nature of Truth by Joachim (signed by the author) is inscribed, obviously at a much later time: “I believe I bought this copy while at Harvard writing my thesis for the PhD, and took it to Oxford with me in 1914.” There are several passages in Joachim’s essay that have been underlined in pencil or indicated for attention by marginal lines. More substantial marginal annotations are to be found in a copy of Bradley’s Appearance and Reality. Completed, passed, but not awarded (the author did not attend to defend his thesis), Eliot’s doctoral dissertation examined Bradley’s theories of perception, signaling for many commentators an intellectual movement away from Bergsonian influences. Christopher Ricks (in T. S. Eliot and Prejudice) has produced a masterful exposition of the influence of Eliot’s research on his subsequent poetry: the thoughtful annotations now found in the Magdalene copy of Bradley—in which Eliot struggles with ideas of time, experience, and perception—substantially reinforce Ricks’s account of the importance of the earlier philosopher. Recent discussions of the relative importance of Bergson and Bradley to Eliot (as in Paul Douglas’s Bergson, Eliot, and American Literature) show how central the poet’s readings and formal study in these early years still prove to be. The annotations contribute a peculiarly immediate and intriguing slant to this undertaking.

There are some further gems. The first edition of Prufrock and Other Observations is a highlight of the bequest. It was, of course, Eliot’s first published work, printed in 1917 by The Egoist magazine in a limited print run of 500 copies. The inscription on the title page reveals that Eliot may not have owned a first edition of Prufrock before he was given this one as a gift in 1958 by a Mr. Skinner, very possibly Aubrey E. Skinner, thelibrarian and Eliot scholar at the University of Texas.

As well as items of scholarly interest, there are many touching aspects to the bequest, with volumes that evoke a real sense of Eliot the man. In particular, several of the books are inscribed by Eliot to his wife in highly affectionate and personal terms; it is a privilege for those of us working on the collection to see the humor, love, and individuality of the relationship revealed in these brief sentences.

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Eliot’s death and the arrival of the Valerie Eliot bequest, the College mounted an exhibition curated by the Pepys Librarian (Dr. M. E. J. Hughes) and by the Archivist (Dr. Ronald Hyam) in January 2015. A list of books in the bequest, revising and extending the list provided by the executors, has been prepared by the Deputy Librarian (Miss Catherine Sutherland) and is available on request or by following the link on the library’s website (www.magd.cam.ac.uk), where essential information for scholars and visitors to the historic libraries of Magdalene may also be found.

---

The Faber & Faber Archive

Eliot’s publisher and longtime employer, Faber & Faber, have made available online several book blurbs, jacket copy, and reader’s reports drafted by Eliot.

---

The Harry Ransom Center

The T. S. Eliot manuscript collection includes handwritten manuscripts, typescripts, proofs, tear sheets, and correspondence, as well as musical scores, proofs, exhibition catalogs, a yearbook, memorial service programs, and photographs (1905–1970). Other Eliot holdings, primarily correspondence, may be found throughout the literary holdings at the Ransom Center. Other holdings, including books from Eliot’s library and images of Eliot, are held in the Center’s Art and Photography collections.

---

The Hayward Bequest at King’s College

For additional information about the brquest, please contact Patricia McGuire, Archivist.

The Hayward Bequest comprises the typescripts, manuscripts, letters, and photographs given by T. S. Eliot to his friend, John Davy Hayward. They include drafts and proofs for some of Eliot’s most famous works, including The Waste Land, Sweeney Agonistes, Four Quartets, Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party. Also included are the texts of several broadcasts and lectures, books from Eliot’s library (many of them annotated), and more than 350 photographs charting the life of Eliot and his family both in England and America. Many aspects of these materials can be illuminated by study of Eliot’s correspondence with Hayward, which can be found at the end of the Letters sequence.

John Davy Hayward (1905–1965, KC 1922) bequeathed to King’s College his valuable library. For many years Eliot systematically gave Hayward groups of manuscripts and typescripts and all printed editions. The last comprise almost everything recorded in Donald Gallup’s T. S. Eliot: a Bibliography (1969) with the addition of a mass of cuttings, programs of performances of the plays, critical books and articles on Eliot, and other items outside the scope of Gallup’s list.

The archive is indexed online through Janus, with a multi-level catalog containing detailed descriptions of individual items held in the archives as well as information on accessing them.

Books from Eliot’s library are listed in this catalog. Other printed material in the Hayward Bequest, comprising books by and about Eliot and others, may be found by reference to a card catalog held by the Archivist. Full details of the printed works by Eliot may be found in an annotated copy of Gallup’s T. S. Eliot: A Bibliography, available in the Reading Room. This annotated copy shows which works by Eliot are held in the King’s College Library, including page proofs.

---

The Houghton Library, Harvard University 

The Houghton Library at Harvard is home to numerous collections of Eliot material, with a  a particular strength in material documenting Eliot’s family relationships and his Harvard connections. Please know that all previously unpublished Eliot material may only be consulted with prior written permission of the Eliot Estate.

Eliot’s Typescripts for The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry, circa 1933

Three typescript lectures (with autograph manuscript annotations and revisions in pencil), concerning Eliot’s definition of metaphysical poetry. 1 typescript includes an autograph note to F. V. M. (Frank Vigor Morley), stating that the lectures are not meant for publication, but that Morley might find the content interesting. Subject of lectures includes both 17th-century English poets, and those of previous poets in France, Italy, and elsewhere, whose work contains some “metaphysicality”; also discusses the works of poets such as John Donne, Dante Alighieri, Richard Crashaw, and others.

Also includes a gray paper folder, with an autograph manuscript note (signed) by Eliot, giving the date of the lectures as January 1933, delivered at Johns Hopkins University as part of the Turnbull Lecture series. These lectures were originally housed in this folder.

T. S. Eliot’s Papers, 1878–1958

The core of this collection was gathered by Henry Ware Eliot, T. S. Eliot’s brother. This portion of the T. S. Eliot collection consists of correspondence; notes; and writings, chiefly manuscripts of plays, addresses, radio broadcasts, and articles, by Eliot; notes on Harvard and Oxford courses, 1910–1915; and papers for philosophy courses. Includes 57 letters, 1937–1959, from Eliot to E. Martin Browne, who produced Eliot’s plays, as well as production scripts and other papers relating to his plays, such as stage plans, seating plans, and programs for various productions of Murder in the Cathedral.