In the years before the war, to the astonishment of his friends the mould-breaking poet moved into a presbytery and discovered Anglo-Catholicism

For those familiar with the ongoing publication of T.S. Eliot’s Letters, which has now reached its eighth volume and takes the story up to 1938, it will probably be a relief to learn that the final issue of The Criterion was published in early 1939. The literary journal which Eliot edited for 17 years provided a cosmopolitan and innovative selection of literature, some of it of enduring interest; unfortunately, the same cannot be said of all the letters concerned with its finances and various manoeuvrings, which have contributed to the bulk of the volumes of Letters to have appeared so far; the latest volume, spanning just three years, has 1,100 exhausting pages.

In September 1938, Eliot reached his fiftieth birthday, an age when he might have looked back with a certain contentment at his achievements. Professionally, his reputation as a poet and publisher was secure, and the immense number of letters he had written over 40 years testifies to the diverse nature of Eliot’s correspondents: family, friends, godchildren, good and bad writers – all receiving mainly thoughtful and considered replies. Cheese, early versions of the cat poems, helping Jews to flee Nazi Germany, and inviting a Criterion contribution from Fr Martin D’Arcy might be amongst the topics Eliot dealt with on a typical day.