Product Description
Poems is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (68)

Fullfilled expectation
Book was in good condition and arrived on time. Would buy from this seller again.

Not so practical at all
After taking My six year old Daughter to the musical Cats for Her first time,
I got Her thisbook, as She was so taken with it, thinking She might have this as
a keepsake...She was upset to find that there was a inventory tracking sticker of some
sort smack dab in the middle of the cover...You know the kind right, made out of white
paper, with a quart of glue, rendering it impossible to peel off.I know it is only a dust
cover, but really??????????????My Daughter, who don't forget is six, feels slighted in some
way, and pointed out that She is not allowed to put stickers on books, and would really like
to know Amazon, why You wrecked Her book by covering the artwork on the cover, by another of
Her favorites, Illustrator Edward Gorey.

If You all insist on putting stickers on things like books, maybe consider shrink wrapping it
first at Your Own cost.

Perfect for Children
This really is T.S. Eliot at his best.And it's written for children!While I'd never take a four-year-old to watch the musical, I'd most definitely read this to one.It's engaging and brilliantly written.

Classic comes alive
This is a classic work, exactly as I expected. I also wanted to read it to small children, but some of the poems are beyond their understanding.

Ryming Poetry Rules!
T.S. Eliot proves with Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats that the rhyming poem is just as valid as free verse. Why some people continue to regard the rhyming poem as the lower form of poetic expression, or as something strictly for the little ones, is beyond me (perhaps it's due in part to the fact that TV advertisers abuse this art form on a regular basis, cheapening it with their cringe-inducing jingles). But whatever the case, these detractors have either never read, or (hard as it is to believe) forgot the magnificent rhyming poetry contained in T.S. Eliot's slim yet thoroughly satisfying masterpiece. The illustrations included in this edition are by Ed Gorey, and they complement Eliot's poetry beautifully. This is a great book. Highly recommended!

I also recommend Alice in Verse: The Lost Rhymes of Wonderland, which like Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, is a collection of brilliant rhyming poetry. As the title suggests, this book contains 'the lost rhymes' of Wonderland, 19 full-length poems that replicate the style of Lewis Carroll so cannily you'd almost swear the legend of the lost rhymes is true. This one may be the most serious contribution to rhyming poetry since Eliot penned his classic ode to cats.
... Read more

Product Description
Prufrock and Other Observations is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Spacing problems ruin the rhythm
I bought the $4 kindle edition instead of the 99 cent one, thinking it would have corrected the spacing problems of the earlier version.I also assumed, incorrectly, that the book would contain a selection of poems and a table of contents.I was sorely disappointed to find only two poems, with the lines run together.I'm a kindle fan, but in this case, I recommend a paper version.

accident?
Perhaps there's something wrong with my kindle because all I see is a table of contents followed by a larger print of the table of contents...

Find a better edition
If you are looking for the title poem, or just some poems by Eliot, avoid this edition. There are 28 pages of print and ten completely blank pages beyond that, an obvious attempt to pad an already slim edition. Besides the blank pages ... the dimensions (height, width) are oversized, leaving way too much blank space in the pages with print. This is simply discraceful. Find these same poems in an edition by a responsible publisher.

Please fix the spacing
I don't get it: why can't Kindle editions maintain the original line structure and spacing? Running everything together and sort of randomly spacing here and there ruins the cadence and readability of the poem.

I can't believe no one's reviewed this...
I hope that no one's reviewed this because they just didn't think to, and not because they've never read it, because that would make me sad.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is an ode to being on the outside, looking in, and not being sure about what you see there.Prufrock (the narrator of the poem) thinks himself a fool, a prince, a messenger, he contemplates an overwhelming question, he dares to eat a peach, and part his hair from behind, and even when he grows old (and wears the ends of his trousers rolled), he does this all alone.

though the poem opens with an invitation, there is little else in the piece that leads the reader to believe that Prufrock is happy for our company, or even aware of it at all. ... Read more

Product Description
Throughout the world, many consider T.S. Eliot to be the most important and influential poet of the 20th century, and Four Quartets to be his finest poem and greatest literary achievement.Dove Descending is a journey into the beauties and depths of Eliot's masterpiece written by Thomas Howard, bestselling author, professor and critic.In this line-by-line commentary, Howard unravels the complexities of the sublime poem with such adept adroitness that even its most difficult passages spring to life.During his many years as a professor of English and Literature, Howard taught this poem often, and developed what he calls "a reading" approach to its concepts that render their meaning more lucid for the reader.Dove Descending reunites the brilliant insights of a master teacher whose understanding and love of Eliot’s writings are shared here for the great benefit of the reader."T.S. Eliot's greatest poem deserves the finest exposition. Few critics alive today are equal to the task. Thomas Howard is one of those gifted few. Lovers of Eliot will delight in Howard's understanding of the mysterious descending of the dove."

—Joseph Pearce

Author, Literary Converts ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Negative Way
This is the first book I've found in the "Sapientia Classics" imprint from Ignatius Press (sapientia means wisdom), although at least one other title, Shakespeare the Papist is also out. T.S. Eliot, widely regarded as a (perhaps "the") modernist poet, was an anglo-Catholic. The anglo part has gotten much commentary; here the Catholic side comes into play.

Thomas Howard has essentially written a companion for Eliot's poetry cycle, "The Four Quartets," designed to be read alongside the poem(s)so one needs a copy of the poem to read along with this book. But many readers also find Howard daunting because of his large vocabulary (see On Being Catholic or Chance or the Dance), so one may also want a dictionary handy. Neither Howard's book nor Eliot's poem(s) are as hard to understand as George William Rutler's introduction, however, which is filled with brilliant insights and bon mots but--wink wink--assumes we have a lot of inside information on all things modernist and Eliotelian.

Thankfully Howard doesn't do that; rather he draws us in by drawing out the poem(s), which he finds is (are) about what Charles Williams called the via negativa or the negative way. You can find it in The Cloud of Unknowing or St. John of the Cross' dark night of the soul (an experience post-modernists readily relate to), but Howard finds it most of all in C.S. Lewis' friend and fellow Inkling, Charles Williams.

That's rather natural since Eliot and Williams were friends and Eliot wrote an introduction to Williams' novel, All Hallows Eve. Howard, who refers to Williams here and there throughout this book also authored The Novels of Charles Williams and took the book's title from Williams' The Descent of the Dove: A History of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Not that you need to read CW to understand Eliot or Howard, both of whom do a good job explaining and invoking the way of negation. But Williams also wrote of another way, the way of affirmation. Howard proves a faithful guide to both writers so that readers interested in both ways, having closed Dove Descending may move seamlessly to The Novels of Charles Williams.

LOOKING FOR A CHALLENGE?
Nothing anybody might say will prepare you for this book, a pilgrimage in itself--and most excellent Lenten reading.Eliot hated footnotes, so that's all I have to say.
Robert Bove
www.RobertBove.net ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Magnificent book, poor binding
Recently, the National Review On-Line "corner', carried scornful, ignorant remarks about Eliot by three marginally talented literary hacks: The glib 'popular mathematics" writer, John Derbyshire, whoseliterary reputation rests on a fairly good novel about a Chinese immigrants fascination with Calvin Coolidge, and who is stupid enough to find Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" a great poem, the talented polemicist ( and frankly, tediousStar Trek enthusiast, Jonah Goldberg),and finally, the film critic for the Weekly Standard, who apparently owes his position, not to his rather meager intellectual virtues, or his very limited taste,but to the fact that he is the son of two very gifted neo-conservative publicists. ( What IS his name again? No matter, it' not important.)
Nothing, I think, could better illustrate the vulgarity and decadence of much- not all- but much of contemporary "conservativism" than such dismissals of the greatest Conservative-and Christian- literary figure and intellectual of the twentieth century. This book-which I urge every intelligentyoung conservative to read- is a powerful antidote. ( incidentally, it also reminds us of how intelligent the conservative movement in this country used to be.) It is a humane, generous, beautifully written,and beautifully thoughtout book of great learning, with surprises on virtually every page. Eliot was not without flaws and blindspots, but this book reminds us of the depth of his moral imagination, the acuteness of his mind, and the breadth of his intellectual and human sympathies. READ it..it is the next best thing to reading Eliot himself.
One caveat. The copy I got from Amazon.com has poor binding. The first eight pages actually fell out. the problem is, how do I contact Amazon.com to get a less shoddily bound replacement? I have searched this web-site, and found no place to issue consumer complaints.

Rediscovering Eliot and Kirk
I first read Kirk's book just out of college in the early 1990's. It guided me to more fully understand the worldview, which I had and in which Eliot and Kirk were my guides.I highly recommend this book for all students of modernity and poetry who are beginning to grapple with Eliot and his thought as well as those who are well versed in Eliot.Kirk's prose is one to study as there no one better at the end of the 20th century.Lockerd's "Introduction" intertwines these two men of letters intellectually, spiritually, and uniquely through "philía".As Eliot continues to be studied and sometimes emasculated by critics, Lockerd turns us back to this often forgotten text for it is an original study of Eliot.Russell Kirk examines and properly refutes the political and racist charges made against Eliot today, but Kirk did this in 1971!Readers should be aware that Kirk is not openly defending Eliot, but rather giving a proper examination to his writings, both poetical and cultural critiques as well as Eliot's relationships. Remember to begin to understand a person; one must first look at the friends around him.

Of the Book in Question and the Amiable Goodness Thereof
Upon reading the aforementioned work by the great and amiable Englishman Russel Kirk, I have been forced to come to conclusion that the work is, in general, well-written and, in particular, quite enlightening. Hisexplanations of Eliot's important poetical works are biographically sound,and are given support by cross-references to other prose pieces by Eliothimself (whether from Eliot's own _Criterion_ or some other publication).The fact that Kirk was a friend of Eliot's gives the book great strengthand objectivity. I recommend this book to any who are at all serious intheir study of Eliot. It is a work no true fan of Eliot can do without,humbuggery notwithstanding.

Yours truly,

Andy Younan, Esq. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Nothing wrong with the way this book was written
"No one has examined the poems more sensitively or set down his results more lucidly.His analyses of 'The Waste Land' and of many other poems are the most complete, reliable, and forthright yet written; they are the product of a deep and long knowledge of Eliot's work."

--Richard Ellman

Cull your highschool essays from here..
I've not been well pleased by this book. Though some of its insights are valuable, and though it is somewhat well researched and fairly comprehensive, it's a chore to read. The author has a style that borders on the incomprehensible -- one feels that he is one of these people who uses tortuous turns of phrase in the mistaken belief that they'll make him seem sophisticated. As a result, the text is disjointed and difficult, its arguments meandering and ill-defined. Williamson has some good ideas, and probably knows what he means, but doesn't get his points across clearly -- it's almost as though he's trying to emulate Eliot's style (or to merely restate the poetry as prose) and, frankly, one often feels as though Williamson has ideas above his station.

In short, this has all of the hallmarks of high school essay-writing -- perhaps the author has spent too long in the company of his students. Using 'difficult' language is neither big nor clever if it serves only to obfuscate meaning; here, the wealth of double-negatives, run-on sentences and unexplained, bewildering conjecture is simply not helpful to the reader of an already difficult poet. If the reader works at it, he or she will gleam some benefit from this book - but there are far better, and better written, works out there. If in doubt, take a look at the excerpts on this site -- it may be that the rather purple prose will appeal to some readers; but I regret that where I had hoped for intelligent discourse, I instead found awkwardly adolescent writing that thought itself more clever than it actually was. ... Read more

Product Description
Eliot's correspondence from his childhood in St. Louis until he had settled in England and published The Waste Land. Edited and with an Introduction by Valerie Eliot; Index; photographs.
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Customer Reviews (1)

a poet in his prose
No biography of Eliot could better capture the thoughts and personality of the young poet than these letters.Eliot had a lively correspondence with so many, including family, friends, editors, and partners in verse.Eventhe short letters -- like the ones in which Eliot simply announces to hiscorrespondent that he's exhausted and doesn't want to write anything --give a glimpse of how Old Possum acted.

Eliot's poetry is so cerebral andallusive that when reading it, one can feel at his mercy.In his lettershe is far less in control, and the contrast is fascinating. ... Read more