The Hyacinth Girl T. S. Eliot's Hidden Muse

Among the greatest of poets, T.S. Eliot protected his privacy while publicly associated with three women: two wives and a churchgoing companion. Yet he concealed a longtime love for an obscure American: Emily Hale, a drama teacher to whom he wrote (and later suppressed) more than a thousand letters. Hale was the source of “memory and desire” in The Waste Land.

Leading biographer Lyndall Gordon reveals a hidden Eliot through both sides of the recently unsealed Hale correspondence—also offering new insight into the other spirited women who shaped his life and art: Vivienne, the flamboyant wife with whom he shared a private wasteland; Mary Trevelyan, his companion in prayer; and Valerie Fletcher, the young disciple to whom he proposed when his second chance with Emily foundered. Though Eliot kept his women apart, they spurred his transformations as expatriate, convert, and, finally, a man “made for love.”