Valerie Eliot

Valerie Eliot née Esmé Valerie Fletcher (b. August 17, 1926) is the surviving widow and second wife of the Nobel prize winning poet T. S. Eliot. She married Eliot, thirty-seven years her senior, on January 10, 1957. [Esty, Jed (2002). [http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/eliot/bio.htm "Modern American Poetry: An Online Journal and Multimedia Companion to "Anthology of Modern American Poetry" (Oxford University Press, 2000)."] " Retrieved January 20, 2007.] She is his most important editor and literary executor, having brought to press "The Waste Land: Facsimile and Manuscripts of the Original Drafts" (1971) and " The Letters of T. S. Eliot: Volume 1, 1898-1922" (1989). She also assisted Christopher Ricks with his edition of "The Inventions of the March Hare" (1996), a volume of Eliot's unpublished verse. A second volume of Eliot's letters, edited by Mrs. Eliot, has been long-delayed, with much speculation but little solid information as to the reason. [Christensen, Karen (Jan. 29, 2005). [http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1400192,00.html "Dear Mrs Eliot..."] . "The Guardian."]

She donates the £15,000 annual prize money for the T. S. Eliot Prize.

Memoir writers who were close companions of T. S. Eliot (such as Joseph Chiari and Herbert Read) have remarked upon Valerie Eliot's extremely positive and rejuvenating effect on T. S. Eliot, who had suffered greatly during the difficult marriage to his first wife, Vivienne Haigh (who died after being committed to a home). Valerie is credited with giving T. S. Eliot some of the happiest years of his life before his health declined.

External links

* [http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/classics/story/0,6000,1400997,00.html "Dear Mrs Eliot..."] , an article by Karen Christensen in "The Guardian" on Valerie Eliot's stewardship and interpretation of T. S. Eliot's literary legacy.

References