The Waste Land
​A Biography of a Poem

Faber and Faber
Hardback, 544pp., 9780571297214 (20 October 2022)
Ebook, B0B27JT487 (18 October 2022)
Paperback, 9780571297226 (3 August 2023) 

W. W. Norton
Hardback, 544pp., 9780393240252 (20 December 2022)
Ebook, B09TQ3F1QD (20 December 2022)

​A Book of the Year in the Sunday Times, Observer, New Statesman and Financial Times

A riveting account of the making of T. S. Eliot’s celebrated poem The Waste Land on its centenary.

The Waste Land has been called the ‘World’s Greatest Poem’. It is said to describe the moral decay of a world after war, to find meaning in a meaningless era. It has been labelled the most truthful poem of its time; it has been branded a masterful fake. A century after its publication in 1922, T. S. Eliot’s enigmatic masterpiece remains one of the most influential works ever written, and yet one of the most mysterious.

In a remarkable feat of biography, Matthew Hollis reconstructs the creation of the poem and brings the material reality of its charged times vividly to life. Presenting a mosaic of historical fragments, diaries, dynamic literary criticism and illuminating new research, he reveals the cultural and personal trauma that forged The Waste Land through the lives of its protagonists— Ezra Pound, who edited it; Vivien Eliot, who sustained it; and T. S. Eliot himself, whose private torment is woven into the seams of the work. The result is an unforgettable story of lives passing in opposing directions and the astounding literary legacy they would leave behind.

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‘A work of art’. The Reviews.

‘[An] impressive examination of artistic creation. Hollis is expert at blending biographical detail with literary criticism . . . It’s a testament to his own talent at dissecting his subject matter and infusing it with imaginative empathy that the reader comes away from his “biography” ready to look at The Waste Land with fresh eyes.’
— Alex Clark, Guardian

‘Matthew Hollis’s The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem examines, with amazing forensic diligence, the context and the fraught composition of the most famous poem of the twentieth century. The clarifying light is . . . exemplary.’
— William Boyd, New Statesman, Books of the Year

‘Hollis regularly creates stunning juxtapositions of context and text. A repossession of The Waste Land is the chief effect of reading his book. But the structure of the book is itself a work of art.’
— Helen Vendler, Times Literary Supplement

‘Hollis succeeds brilliantly in bringing the literary landscape of the 1920s to life . . . [He] turns a complex process of literary composition into a rattling good story . . . wonderfully compelling.’
— Tristram Fane Saunders, Sunday Telegraph

‘Hollis combines a poet’s sharp eye for details with a cultural historian’s grasp of atmosphere . . . The richness of [his] analysis is evident on every page.’
— Jason Harding, Financial Times

‘Like the 434-line poem, this book immerses the reader in the political, social and cultural themes of the day . . . [Hollis] weaves a rich body of research into a fast-paced narrative.’
— Ellen Peirson-Hagger, New Statesman

‘Matthew Hollis’s book is deeply and brilliantly concerned with all the tendrils of [Eliot's] unhappiness, and his triumphant creative response to it . . . Such is the energy and engagement of Hollis in this task that you find yourself rooting for the emergence of the poem along with Eliot and his supporters, willing it into life as the book progresses.’
— Tim Adams, Observer

'With elegance, wit and . . . warmth, [Hollis] tells the story of The Waste Land’s difficult birth . . . At times the book reads, delightfully, as a group biography of modernism’s bright lights.'
— Susannah Goldsbrough, The Times

‘A wide-ranging account . . . brings to life the exciting, even overheated, creative environment in which the poem came into being . . . Meticulously grounding his account in time and place and paying close attention to the interplay of poetic intuition and critical mind, Hollis succeeds in gripping our attention.’
— Hilary Jones, Literary Review