Eliot, T.S.

4to (282 x 223mm.), first edition, no.37 of 220 copies (out of a total edition of 264), presentation copy inscribed by the author to Emily Hale ("For Emily Hale | with the author's | humble compliments. | T.S. Eliot. | 5.ix.23..."), autograph quotation in Italian from Dante beneath (translating as "Let me entrust to you my Treasury, wherein I still survive..."), tissue guard, initials and colophon designed by Edward Wadsworth, first issue bound in black-coated paper boards, yellow cloth spine, black endpapers, preserved in red cloth folding case and quarter red morocco slipcase, some slight wear to binding, particularly lower panel 

Jonathan Goodwin, his sale, Part I, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 29 March 1977, lot 66

Gallup A4a

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing where appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

A very rare example on the open market of one of Eliot's works inscribed by him to his secret love, and mysterious muse, Emily Hale.

T.S. Eliot first began a romantic attachment with the refined Bostonian Emily Hale (d.1969) at Harvard some time after 1906. They were so close that both she, and members of both of their families, were convinced that they would marry. In 1914, however, Eliot decided not to return from Europe, and within a year was married - disastrously, it turned out - to Vivien Haigh-Wood. In April 1927 Emily, by then a teacher at Milwaukee-Downer College, wrote to Eliot and they resumed contact, subsequently meeting when Eliot sailed to America and Emily visited England for summer holidays. Out of their visit to an abandoned great house in the Cotswolds in 1934, which clearly inspired an intense shared experience of "what might have been", Eliot composed his celebrated poem "Burnt Norton". A highly private individual, Eliot insisted on the total secrecy of these meetings. Following the recent research of Eliot scholars such as Lyndall Gordon (see T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life, 1998) it is now accepted that Emily was a central muse for Eliot's poetry. Eliot's affinity with Dante is well documented: The Waste Land begins and ends with references to Dante, and the present work (which translates from the Provençal as "Therefore do I implore you") is a quotation from Purgatory XXVI, where the twelfth-century Occitan troubadour Arnaut Daniel, doing penance for lust, is explaining to the narrator who he is. It is equally apposite that he should quote from the Inferno in the present inscription to Emily Hale, for Emily was a kind of Beatrice to Eliot: she was the pure, vital but finally mysterious woman who inspired his art. This would also explain, ultimately, why their physical relationship did not develop. When Vivien died in 1947 he still refused to marry her. The relationship survived, but came under intense strain following Eliot's remarriage, ten years later, to his secretary Valerie Fletcher. Eliot broke off all ties after 1956 when Emily gave her side of their correspondence - over one thousand letters - to Princeton University Library. Under Eliot's insistence, the letters remain sealed until 2019. It is believed that Eliot himself destroyed all of Emily's letters to him. 

The autograph quotation from Dante's Inferno and reads: "Sieti Ra Commendato | Il Mio Tesoro | Nello Qual Vivo Ancor | E Non Piu Chieggio | Poi Si Revolse" ("Let me entrust to you my Treasury, wherein I still survive; I ask no more of you. Then he turned and left"). The subject of Inferno XV (Brunetto Latini) is entrusting Dante with a copy of his Livre de tresor, a prose encyclopaedia written in French.

Ara Vus Prec was published in February 1920. The error "Vus" for "Vos" in the title was discovered after the sheets had been printed and was corrected only on the spine label. The first American edition, under the simpler title Poems and with "Hysteria" substituted for "Ode", was published by Knopf later in the same month.