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Faber and Faber
Hardback, 544pp., 9780571297214 (20 October 2022) Ebook, 9780571297238 (18 October 2022) Audiobook, 9780571382644 (22 December 2022) Paperback, 9780571297226 (3 August 2023) |
W. W. Norton
Hardback, 544pp., 9780393240252 (20 December 2022) Ebook, B09TQ3F1QD (20 December 2022) Audiobook CD (Tantor), 9798212521697 (14 February 2023) Paperback, 9781324065982 (9 January 2024) |
‘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
‘Hollis delves into the deep background from which The Waste Land arose . . . There is genuine suspense in the air, as Hollis invites us to listen out for murmurs and rumours, in the poet’s letters of long ago.’
– Anthony Lane, New Yorker
‘Hollis brilliantly sifts through the tendrils of T. S. Eliot’s unhappiness and shows how, with help from friends, he broke through his tortured silence to create an era-defining poem.’
– Observer
‘In the 100 years since T. S. Eliot penned his famous poem, it has taken on a life of its own. So it’s fitting, perhaps, that Matthew Hollis treats Eliot’s work to its own biography. This richly analytical book locates the poem’s genesis in the aftermath of the first world war and the “nightmare agony” of Eliot’s disastrous marriage.’
– Carl Wilkinson, Financial Times, Books of the Year
‘Examines, with amazing forensic diligence, the context and fraught composition of the most famous poem of the 20th century. The clarifying light in each case is exemplary. The celebrated “difficulty” of both men and their work was revealed as perhaps not so difficult at all.’
– William Boyd, New Statesman, Books of the Year
‘It is fascinating to read how Eliot created the great modernist poem – often in a state of nervous or physical distress: one chunk scribbled in Margate while signed off sick, another in Geneva, plagued by nerves, gut problems, genital pain – and how much the work owes not just to Eliot’s personal unhappiness, but to Pound’s red pen.’
– Lucy Atkins, Sunday Times, Books of the Year
‘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.’
– Susie Goldsbrough, The Times
‘[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
‘Hollis succeeds brilliantly in bringing the literary landscape of the 1920s to life, its magazines and manifestos, flings and infidelities. We meet Virginia Woolf and Wyndham Lewis, and watch W. B. Yeats at dinner, “a lock of hair flopping into his soup”. Hollis turns a complex process of literary composition into a rattling good story.’
– Tristram Fane Saunders, Sunday Telegraph
‘Hollis has made it possible to tether The Waste Land to Eliot’s life and Pound’s intervention more closely than ever before . . . He 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
‘This intellectual biography of T.S. Eliot’s acclaimed 1922 poem reveals the social and personal fractures that abounded during its creation, highlighting the influence of the post-World War I London literary scene and Eliot’s editor Ezra Pound.’
– New York 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 Davies, Literary Review
‘Illuminating . . . Hollis blends rich characterization and historical background to create a vivid picture of the London literary scene . . . Hollis’s sharp prose sings and is poetic in its own right . . . This fascinating and brilliantly researched history will delight Eliot’s fans.’
– Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
‘An authoritative and beautifully written account of the peculiar alchemy that produced the most influential poem of the twentieth century. This is more than the story of T. S. Eliot's genius: Matthew Hollis reveals how the forces of friendship, love, despair, madness, and ambition shaped The Waste Land. Literary history at its finest.’
– Heather Clark, author of Red Comet
‘Matthew Hollis’s book is deeply and brilliantly concerned with all the tendrils of that unhappiness, and Eliot’s 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
‘Sympathetic and finely attuned . . . This is a learned and thoughtful book, the detail and intricacy of which persuasively communicates its author’s preoccupation with the poem; and, in a way, its own procedures admiringly emulate those of its subject.’
– Seamus Perry, Society
‘Surprisingly suspenseful, Hollis’s book shows how, at many turns, Eliot’s poem could have ended up something else, full of scattered brilliances but not the sustained masterpiece we have today.’
– A. E. Stallings, American Scholar
‘Over the years, Eliot’s work has attracted good criticism from superlatively good critics, including Helen Gardner, Hugh Kenner, Christopher Ricks, Ronald Bush, Lyndall Gordon, and Lawrence Rainey. Now, to this distinguished company, we can add Hollis, for he has written a truly bravura critical portrait of a poem that still dazzles as much as it mystifies its worldwide readers.’
– Edward Short, City Journal
‘Brilliant.’
– James Parker, Atlantic
‘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
‘A great work of art takes on a life of its own. This is the strategy – equally artful and assessive – of Matthew Hollis' s superb new study . . . To tell the life story of this poem, Hollis tells the story of the poet, sometimes minute by minute, conversation by conversation. The moving result – as Whitman would say of his own sweeping poetry – is that “who touches this [book] touches a man”.’
– David Barker, author of Whale Fall
‘This probing “biography” of The Waste Land explores the interrelation of creativity and trauma that informed T. S. Eliot’s masterwork while emphasizing the poet’s many debts to his contemporary, Ezra Pound.’
– Booklist
‘[A] rewarding literary dive into the alchemy of a classic, from Eliot’s leap of courage to Pound’s scorched-earth battle for respect with Poetry magazine in Chicago.’ – Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune
'Revelatory and unputdownable.'
– David Harsent, One Hand Clapping