ELIOT, T. S.. The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism. Studies in the Relation of Criticism to Poetry in England.. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1933, 1933.

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Description: First US edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed by Eliot on the front free endpaper to the man who baptised him into the Church of England: "to Stead, T. S. Eliot 1935". The recipient, William Force Stead (1884-1967), was an American poet, critic, Anglican clergyman, and chaplain of Worcester College, Oxford, from 1927 to 1933. He and Eliot first met in 1923, and began a correspondence in 1926, when Stead sent Eliot a copy of his book The Shadow of Mount Carmel, a series of meditations in poetry and prose tracing his pilgrimage from Oxford to Assisi. Eliot replied that he would read the book "with great interest" (Eliot, Letters, p. 306), and wrote again to Stead the following February regarding his conversion to Anglicanism: "My dear Stead. I want your advice, information & your practical assistance in getting Confirmation with the Anglican Church." Eliot rarely confided about his spiritual life in his letters, and he pressed Stead to keep his intentions secret: "I rely upon you not to mention this to anyone. I do not want any publicity or notoriety - for the moment, it concerns me alone, & not the public - not even those nearest to me. I hate spectacular 'conversions'" (Letters, pp. 403-4). Stead baptised Eliot at the Holy Trinity Church, Finstock, on 29 June 1927. He later recalled the day in his essay "Some Personal Reminiscences of T. S. Eliot", published in 1965: "I was living in Finstock, a small village far away in the country, with Wychwood Forest stretching off to the north, and the lonely Cotswold hills all round. Eliot came down from London for a day or two, and I summoned from Oxford Canon B. H. Streeter [of Queen's College] and Vere Somerset [of Worcester College]. These were his Godfathers. It seemed odd to have such a large though infant Christian at the baptismal font, so, to avoid embarrassment, we locked the front door of the little parish church and posted the verger on guard in the vestry. My three guests remained for the night, and after dinner we went for a twilight walk through Wychwood, an ancient haunted forest, 'savage and enchanted'. I can see Eliot pacing under the mighty oaks and pushing his way through hazel thickets attired in a smart suit, a bowler hat, and grey spats." Eliot later praised Stead in a testimonial, dated 9 December 1938, as "a valued friend" and "a poet of established position and individual inspiration". The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism is based on the Charles Eliot Norton lectures which Eliot delivered at Harvard University in the winter of 1932-3. This edition was published simultaneously with the first British edition on 2 December 1933. Gallup A24b. Valerie Eliot and John Haffenden, eds, Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 3: 1926–1927, 2012; William Force Stead, "Some Personal Reminiscences of T. S. Eliot", Alumni Journal of Trinity College, Washington, vol. 38, no. 2, Winter 1965. Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. With dust jacket. Extremities lightly rubbed, faint browning and offsetting to endpapers, pp. viii-xi browned from inserted clipping, contents otherwise clean, a very good copy. Jacket marked and rubbed, spine slightly toned, top edge chipped and creased, otherwise very good and unclipped.

Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom