T.S. Eliot

First edition of one of Eliot’s most beloved works, a collection of nonsense rhymes that became the basis for the multiple Tony-award-winning Broadway musical Cats.

• T. S. Eliot (American).
• London: Faber and Faber Limited, [1939].
• 46 pages.
• Bound in original yellow cloth binding with red lettering and embellishment, in original unclipped (3s. 6d.) yellow pictorial dust jacket, fore-edge machine deckle.

It is difficult to read the poems of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats without one’s brain filling in the tunes from the wildly successful Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Yet the love for this work is not a recent occurrence: upon its publication, The Guardian described it as “presented with a wit that young and old will appreciate,” and an illustrated edition followed quickly in 1940. 

Quite unexpectedly given its jolly tone, Old Possum is directly connected to T. S. Eliot’s grim monument The Waste Land. Ezra Pound, who helped to edit The Waste Land, gave Eliot the nickname “Old Possum.” Further, the marital difficulties that inspired Eliot to pen The Waste Land also contributed to the poem “Of the Awefull Battle of the Pekes and Pollicles,” as noted by scholar Henry Hart. The relationship between these titles is an excellent illustration of the importance of considering the entire output of an author, rather than focusing on their “masterpieces." An attractive copy, in a jacket illustrated with Eliot’s own simple line drawings.

Henry Hart, “T. S. Eliot’s Autobiographical Cats,” The Sewanee Review, vol. 120 no. 3.

Gallup, T.S. Eliot: A Bibliography, A34a.