The Wasteland And Other Poems

The Waste Land and Other Poems (c.1954) by T. S. Eliot – Faber and Faber

Some poetry wants to hold your hand.

Some poetry wants to tell you about daffodils.

T. S. Eliot had other plans.

The Waste Land and Other Poems, published by Faber and Faber around 1954, brings together some of Eliot’s best-known work and offers the reader that rare literary experience of feeling simultaneously impressed, intrigued and faintly concerned that everyone else in the room has understood something you have not.

At the centre is The Waste Land, one of the defining poems of twentieth-century literature: fragmented, allusive, strange, haunting and magnificently unwilling to explain itself.

This is poetry with footnotes.

Poetry with mythology.

Poetry with religion, history, classical references, popular culture, multiple voices, several languages and the general atmosphere of Western civilisation having misplaced its keys.

First published in 1922, The Waste Land became one of the great landmarks of literary modernism, capturing a world unsettled by war, social change and the collapse of old certainties. Eliot does not provide a reassuring guided tour through any of this.

Instead, he gives you fragments.

Voices appear and vanish. Images collide. References emerge from ancient texts and everyday life. Meaning seems tantalisingly close, then wanders off into another century.

It is brilliant.

It is difficult.

It has kept university English departments employed for generations.

Alongside The Waste Land are other poems that demonstrate Eliot’s distinctive style: precise, intellectual, melancholy, occasionally funny and often possessed of the unsettling feeling that modern life has somehow gone slightly wrong while everyone was distracted.

This is not poetry designed to be consumed between advertisements.

It rewards rereading, pondering, arguing about and occasionally staring out of a window while wondering what exactly just happened.

There is something especially appropriate about reading Eliot in an older Faber edition.

The austere typography, the restrained presentation and the general seriousness of the object suit the poems perfectly. This is a book that does not need to shout for attention.

It simply sits there looking literary until you feel guilty enough to open it.

This copy is in Good condition, and actually presents very well for its age.

There is a slight curve to the book, along with a small nick to the dust jacket at the spine, but otherwise it remains in very good condition for a copy of this vintage.

That minor wear feels almost appropriate.

A perfectly immaculate copy of Eliot would somehow seem suspicious.

A little age, a slight curve and a modest nick suggest a book that has actually existed in the world, which is more than can be said for several of the civilisation fragments discussed within.

Ideal for collectors of T. S. Eliot, readers of modernist poetry, students of twentieth-century literature or anyone who enjoys books capable of making an ordinary cup of tea feel intellectually significant.

Also a fine choice for anyone who would like to place a slim, serious-looking volume on a bedside table and immediately improve the cultural tone of the room.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where even the wasteland has a shelf number and minor dust-jacket injuries are treated with appropriate literary solemnity.

ISBN: None
Condition: Good
Notes: Slight curve to the book and a small nick to the dust jacket at the spine; otherwise very good for its age.

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