"A groundbreaking new biography of one of the twentieth century's most important poets. On the fiftieth anniversary of the death of T.S. Eliot, Robert Crawford presents us with the first volume of a definitive biography of this poetic genius. Young Eliot traces the life of the twentieth century's most important poet from his childhood in St. Louis to the publication of his revolutionary poem The Waste Land. Crawford's depiction of Eliot's childhood--laced with tragedy and shaped by an idealistic, bookish family in which knowledge of saints and martyrs was taken for granted--provides readers with a new understanding of the foundations of some of the most widely read poems in the English language. Meticulously detailed and incisively written, Young Eliot portrays a brilliant, shy, and wounded American who defied his parents' wishes and committed himself to an artistic life as an immigrant in England, creating work that is astonishing in its scope and vulnerability. Quoting extensively from Eliot's poetry and prose as well as drawing on new interviews, archives, and previously undisclosed memoirs, the award-winning biographer Robert Crawford shows how the poet's background in Missouri, Massachusetts, and Paris made him a lightning rod for modernity. Most impressively, Young Eliot reveals the way he accessed his inner life--his anguishes and his fears--and blended them with his omnivorous reading to create his masterpieces "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and The Waste Land. At last, we experience T.S. Eliot in all his tender complexity as student and lover, penitent and provocateur, banker and philosopher--but most of all, Young Eliot shows us as an epoch-shaping poet struggling to make art among personal disasters"--Provided by publisher. "A biography of T.S. Eliot from his birth in St. Louis in 1888 to his publication of The Waste Land in 1922"--Provided by publisher.