The Waste Land is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important English-language poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the October issue of Eliot's magazine The Criterion and in the United States in the November issue of The Dial. Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month", "I will show you fear in a handful of dust", and "These fragments I have shored against my ruins".
Title page of the first book edition (December 1922)
Vivienne Eliot in 1921
The blue plaque near the Nayland Rock shelter in Margate where Eliot wrote some of The Waste Land.
Ezra Pound, a major editor of the work
Thomas Stearns Eliot was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. He is considered to be one of the 20th century's greatest poets, as well as a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry. His use of language, writing style, and verse structure reinvigorated English poetry. He is also noted for his critical essays, which often reevaluated long-held cultural beliefs.
Eliot in 1934
Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot, passport photograph from 1920
A plaque at SOAS's Faber Building, 24 Russell Square, London
The Faber and Faber building where Eliot worked from 1925 to 1965; the commemorative plaque is under the right-hand arch.
