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T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life Paperback – December 1, 1999

by Lyndall Gordon (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 99 ratings
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Lyndall Gordon's biographical work on T. S. Eliot has won many dramatic accolades.

In this "nuanced, discerning account of a life famously flawed in its search for perfection" (The New Yorker), Gordon captures Eliot's "complex spiritual and artistic history . . . with tact, diligence, and subtlety" (Boston Globe). Drawing on recently discovered letters, she addresses in full the issue of Eliot's anti-Semitism as well as the less-noted issue of his misogyny. Her account "rescues both the poet and the man from the simplifying abstractions that have always been applied to him" (The New York Times), and is "definitive but not dogmatic, sympathetic without taking sides. . . . Its voice rings with authority" (Baltimore Sun). Praised by Cynthia Ozick as "daring, strong, psychologically brilliant," Gordon's study remains true to the mysteries of art as she chronicles the poet's "insistent search for salvation."
Previous page
  1. Print length
    754 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    December 1, 1999
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1.4 x 8.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780393320930
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393320930
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

The most authoritative life of Eliot thus far. -- Publishers Weekly starred review

[D]aring, strong, psychologically brilliant. -- Cynthia Ozick

[D]efinitive but not dogmatic, sympathetic without taking sides. . . . Its voice rings with authority. -- Baltimore Sun

[R]escues both the poet and the man from the simplifying abstractions that have always been applied to him. -- New York Times

About the Author

Lyndall Gordon is the author of eight acclaimed biographies, including T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life. She lives in Oxford. England.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0393320936
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (December 1, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 754 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780393320930
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393320930
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.02 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.4 x 8.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 99 ratings

About the author

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Lyndall Gordon

Lyndall Gordon

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Lyndall Gordon is the prize-winning author of six biographies, including Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds; The Imperfect Life of TS Eliot; Shared Lives, a memoir of women's friendship in her native South Africa; and Divided Lives: Dreams of a Mother and a Daughter, which tells her own story. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and lives in Oxford where she is a fellow of St Hilda's College.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
99 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

frank farrar
5.0 out of 5 stars Well written and fair-minded biography.
Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2022
Verified Purchase
Finally got around to finishing this account of Eliot's personal life.
It quite well predicted the broad outlines of the contents of his more recently published correspondence.
Not that he deserves excuses for his cruelties, but he was harder on himself than he was on the many he chose to despise for embracing the easy ways he aspired to transcend. He long knew himself to be a failure, but because he could not admit that his life ended up being rather complicated and deceptive. A tragic life one must suppose because a bit of self-forgiveness would finally free him during his declining years to embrace real happiness, but only after breaking the hearts of the last of his life-long friends.
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dale campbell
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book.
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2023
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This is a very well written book. I reread the Waste lands and still had some trouble understanding it. But that was not the book's fault. It was revealing to read the background to Eliot's life.
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John
4.0 out of 5 stars T S Eliot for the world at large, an indispensable book.
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2020
Verified Purchase
This is a brilliant work. It captures the very essence of Eliot’s unique personality and his rather sad, melancholic life which changed with the appearance of his second wife, who gave him joy, a sense of security, as well as strength in his spiritual quest which was so important in his personal and creative self. This unique life will satisfy readers who cherish his poetry and also the newcomer, who will discover this magnificent man who gave so much sense and beauty to the tragic 20th century, without hiding the sadness and deep sorrows that we had to endure. The Waste Land is a monumental work of art and a deep psychological portrait of those life changing years. A must read!!
One person found this helpful
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Fred Campbell
5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a necessary blend . . .
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2000
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After reading the trite Eliot biography written by Peter Ackroyd, a man who specializes in biography and not thinking (apparently), I thought all hope lost for an accurate examination of Eliot's life and poetry. Lyndall Gordon's book has restored my faith in biographers. Eliot, himself, was a complex man, and taking on the task of his biography seems as complex as the man and as intimidating as one might assume. Gordon pursues the historical Eliot and the poetic Eliot, finally yielding the necessary blend of biography and poetry required by the life of any moder poet, and certainly more of Eliot than any other. Gordon sees the same need for discussing poetry and biography that Yeats speaks of. This book is for those in need of something much more substantial that the usual tabloid fodder biographers seem intent on producing these days. In it, Eliot comes to life physically, intellectually, and spiritually. A truly romantic effort.
46 people found this helpful
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Marianna
5.0 out of 5 stars Covers the man as a whole, as well as the poet, excellent
Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2018
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Couldn't have wished for a better 'synopsis' of Eliot's life. We now wait for release of the Hale letters in 2019....
3 people found this helpful
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Mr. D. James
5.0 out of 5 stars Informed and Lively
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2016
Gordon, Lyndall. The Imperfect Life of TS Eliot

The revised edition of Lyndall Gordon’s biography (2012) is a comprehensive account of Eliot’s life, dealing mainly with his life in England, and including five appendices plus a profusion of Notes. It is however a fascinating insight into the mind and art of Eliot, his many masks and his difficulties with women, especially those whom he served badly. The book reads rather like a mystery-thriller, the ‘real’ Eliot being kept under wraps until the end. The ‘Imperfect’ of the title reflects on Eliot’s conception of himself and the world he lived in, especially his ‘Waste Land’ experience of London as a young man.

Eliot preserved for the outside world a smooth and cultured exterior, behind which, however, raged a tormented soul, steeped in New England Puritanism. Gordon relates his early life in Boston and Havard to his adoption of England as the only civilised place to live. Early on she introduces us to Emily Hale, a major player in Eliot’s life until suddenly, after years of close friendship in England and the States she becomes for Eliot a non-person. Eliot, who fell in love with Emily as a fellow student and continued covertly to visit her in Chipping Campden, then dropped her completely. She had served her purpose as a loving companion, but closer ontact was damnation for Eliot, whose exacting moral code embraced chastity, austerity, humility and sanctity. Something similar happened to his decade of friendship with Mary Trevelyan, an independent English woman who became his confidante in his frantic marriage with Vivienne Haigh-Wood. Eliot was afraid of women, Gordon asserts, and only at the very end of his life did he find happiness - with his former secretary, Valerie.

For those interested in Eliot’s crises of conscience and for addicts of English writers, such as Auden, Spender, and the Woolfs, not to mention Americans like Lowell, Hawthorne, Emerson and Ezra Pound this book is a gold-mine. Hence one who despised biography (and forbade any during his life) has, thanks to this informed and lively tome, posthumously provided material for an insightful book you’ll not easily put down.
12 people found this helpful
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Eddie C. Williams
4.0 out of 5 stars He was an extremely complex man who wrote poetry to match his personal complexity. Great book.
Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2022
Verified Purchase
The book is somewhat tedious, but so is the subject. What I dislike most is the author’s frequent use of foreign language parenthetical inserts without providing translations for the less educated among her audience. I consider this to be a bit pretentious and unnecessary. The book is highly detailed and provides explications for Eliot’s more obscure poems that are very helpful.
3 people found this helpful
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Beverly Seaton
1.0 out of 5 stars Hagiography
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2009
Verified Purchase
This is not a biography, but a hagiography. Others have noted that it seems more about his work than his life. There is probably a good reason for that. For a corrective, see Carole Seymour-Jones, Painted Shadow: The Life of Vivienne Eliot. This gives us a better idea of what Eliot was like. I find it hard to understand that a book published in 1998 as this was is so terrified that Eliot was a homosexual. The portrait she paints of his idyllic marriage to Valerie Fletcher is hilarious--a 68 year old famous man finds "love" for the first time with a 30 year old who worships him. Well, it takes all kinds. Perhaps this author does not believe that gays can "love" one another. This book does not even deserve one star.
12 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Dr. WD Ashton
5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive biography of a poetic genius
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 29, 2024
Verified Purchase
This revised edition of Lyndall Gordon’s biography of T.S. Eliot (2012) is a comprehensive and deeply perceptive account of an extraordinarily complex and gifted man. There are a number of biographies of T.S. Eliot, but this is – by some margin – the best. Unlike others, including Robert Crawford’s recent two-volume, which are essentially chronological accounts of events, Gordon gives us a fascinating insight into both the mind and the art of Eliot - his complexities, his foibles, and his various masks. The Eliot that we are given is riven – torn between his wish to be a saint and the facts of his (and our) finitude and temporal enchainment. In the end - as Eliot finally recognised – the life of the saint was not for him, or for us. We are fragile, mortal beings, part of a reality which we cannot understand. It is not sainthood which finally redeemed Eliot, but ordinary human love.
Lyndall Gordon shows how the events of Eliot’s life, including his disastrous first marriage and his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism were – consciously or otherwise - reflected in his poetry. I found her account of the genesis of Four Quartets to be especially insightful and revealing.
Overall, this is a beautifully written, sympathetic, and balanced account of Eliot’s life, which I strongly recommend to anyone with an interest in Eliot the man - and the poet.
One person found this helpful
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hemant shah
5.0 out of 5 stars Good
Reviewed in India on August 15, 2020
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Good condition and timely delivery .
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Francisco Ruiz
5.0 out of 5 stars Best biography of Eliot.
Reviewed in Spain on July 16, 2019
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La mejor biografía de Eliot en inglés. Las dos partes en un solo volumen de tapa blanda.
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Paulo Leite
5.0 out of 5 stars Lyndal Gordon escreve o que considero a melhor biografia de T.S. Eliot.
Reviewed in Brazil on October 15, 2017
Verified Purchase
Eliot foi e é um grande poeta americano, junto com Shelley, Stevens e Whitman. Sua crítica literária, seus escritos sociais e religiosos são, na visão de alguns exegetas, infelizes. Similar, seu antissemitismo de toda a vida e sua aversão (e medo) às mulheres são outros elementos que mancham seu nome. Ele abominou a condição humana até o final de vida e o que o inspirava era seu culto ao pecado original. Essas observações podem ser encontradas em “T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life”, de Lyndal Gordon e, similar à obra de Russel Kirk – “A Era de T. S. Eliot”, é ideal para uma consulta rápida sobre a vida do poeta.

Gordon escreve sobre Eliot com uma perspicácia constante, ressaltando os enormes sofrimentos de Eliot durante o seu primeiro casamento, que foi terrível. E mesmo assim ele apresenta um desfile tão longo de interesse próprio, preconceitos, misoginia, impotência sexual e desprezo pela condição humana que desistiríamos se Eliot não fosse, em seus melhores momentos, um grande poeta.

O Eliot de Gordon passa a vida buscando “o amor de Deus” e escarnecendo das “afeições humanas comuns” até que, aos 68 anos, aceita o amor de Valerie Fletcher, sua secretária, com quem permaneceu casado por oito anos. Gordon conclui: “Ele parecia sofrer de uma incapacidade de perceber o sofrimento fora de sua própria experiência pessoa”.

A importância de Eliot hoje se deve a um magro corpo de poemas, em particular “A Terra Desolada” e “Quatro Quartetos”, ambos de difícil compreensão para o leitor comum, na minha opinião.

Enfim, todos temos vidas imperfeitas, e não conheço quase ninguém que seja tolo a ponto de criticar a vida de Eliot. Seus preconceitos não eram exclusivos dele, e talvez nem se deva esperar que os grandes poetas e escritores deem exemplos morais. Cito como exemplo o comportamento abominável do filósofo francês Rousseau, que abandou seus cinco filhos em um orfanato. Quem somos nós para julgá-los? Isso é entre eles e seu Deus: “Alguém imaginou que os que corrompem suas próprias almas conseguem se esconder de si mesmos?”.

Boa leitura!
One person found this helpful
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Mr. D. James
5.0 out of 5 stars The book reads rather like a mystery-thriller
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 15, 2016
Verified Purchase
Gordon, Lyndall. The Imperfect Life of TS Eliot

The revised edition of Lyndall Gordon’s biography (2012) is a comprehensive account of Eliot’s life, dealing mainly with his life in England, and including five appendices plus a profusion of Notes. It is however a fascinating insight into the mind and art of Eliot, his many masks and his difficulties with women, especially those whom he served badly. The book reads rather like a mystery-thriller, the ‘real’ Eliot being kept under wraps until the end. The ‘Imperfect’ of the title reflects on Eliot’s conception of himself and the world he lived in, especially his ‘Waste Land’ experience of London as a young man.

Eliot preserved for the outside world a smooth and cultured exterior, behind which, however, raged a tormented soul, steeped in New England Puritanism. Gordon relates his early life in Boston and Havard to his adoption of England as the only civilised place to live. Early on she introduces us to Emily Hale, a major player in Eliot’s life until suddenly, after years of close friendship in England and the States she becomes for Eliot a non-person. Eliot, who fell in love with Emily as a fellow student and continued covertly to visit her in Chipping Campden, then dropped her completely. She had served her purpose as a loving companion, but closer ontact was damnation for Eliot, whose exacting moral code embraced chastity, austerity, humility and sanctity. Something similar happened to his decade of friendship with Mary Trevelyan, an independent English woman who became his confidante in his frantic marriage with Vivienne Haigh-Wood. Eliot was afraid of women, Gordon asserts, and only at the very end of his life did he find happiness - with his former secretary, Valerie.

For those interested in Eliot’s crises of conscience and for addicts of English writers, such as Auden, Spender, and the Woolfs, not to mention Americans like Lowell, Hawthorne, Emerson and Ezra Pound this book is a gold-mine. Hence one who despised biography (and forbade any during his life) has, thanks to this informed and lively tome, posthumously provided material for an insightful book you’ll not easily put down.
16 people found this helpful
 Report