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SUMMARY: Will Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator
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William Peen Adair Rogers was born on the Dog Iron Ranch in Indian Territory, near present-day Oologah, Oklahoma. He quickly became known as Will to his family and friends. The house where he was born was built in 1875 and was known as the “White House on the Verdigris River. Both of his parents Clement Vann Rogers and Mary America Schrimsher were each of Cherokee heritage. Rogers famously quipped that his ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower but they “met the boat”. Will’s father Clement Rogers was a distinguished figure in Indian Territory. He served as both a Cherokee senator and judge and he served as a delegate to the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention. He was so well known that Rogers County, Oklahoma is named in honor of Clement Rogers. Will’s mother Mary Rogers was the daughter of a Cherokee chief. She died suddenly when Will was 11, and his father remarried less than two years after her death.

Will Rogers was the youngest of his parents’ eight children. The family suffered a great deal of tragedy when only three of his siblings, sisters Sallie Clementine, Maude Ethel, and May (Mary), survived into adulthood. Will attended Willow Hassel School in Neosho, Missouri, and later Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri. He chose to end his studies after the 10th grade. Records show that he was a poor student and was much more interested in cowboys and horses, learning to rope and use a lariat

After ending his formal education, Rogers worked the Dog Iron Ranch for a few years. He and a friend left home near the end of 1901 with aspirations to work as gauchos in Argentina. They finally made it to Argentina in May 1902, and spent five months trying to make it as ranch owners in the Argentine wilderness. Unfortunately, Rogers and his partner lost all their money, so the two friends separated and Rogers sailed for South Africa, where he took a job breaking in horses for the British Army near the end of the Boer War. After the war ended and the British Army no longer required his services, he began his show business career as a trick roper in “Texas Jack’s Wild West Circus”. He eventually quit the circus and returned to the United States in 1904, and began to try his roping skills on the American vaudeville circuits.

Will’s success on the vaudeville circuits led to his success in film. At first the medium of silent film seemed to slow him down and damper his enthusiasm since much of his fame depended on his witty commentary. He ended up writing many of the title cards that appeared in his films which made them even more memorable. With the advent of “talkies” Will Rogers became a star. His films became instant successes and his fame was international. He ultimately made 71 films in all.

Will began writing a weekly column, titled “Slipping the Lariat Over,” at the end of 1922. He had already published a book of wisecracks and had begun a steady stream of humor books. Through his continuing series of columns between 1922 and 1935, as well his personal appearances and radio broadcasts, he won the loving admiration of the American people.

In 1908, Rogers married Betty Blake, and the couple added four children to their family: Will Rogers, Jr. (Bill), Mary Amelia (Mary), James Blake (Jim), and Fred Stone. The family lived most of the time in New York, but they managed to make it home to Oklahoma during the summers. In 1911, Rogers bought a 20-acre ranch near Claremore, Oklahoma, which he intended to use as his retirement home, paying only $500 per acre.

An avid supporter of aviation, Will undertook a flight around the world with a fellow Oklahoman, world-renowned aviator Wiley Post, in the summer of 1935. Post’s plane was an experimental and nose-heavy hybrid of Lockheed Explorer and Orion. The plane crashed south of Barrow, Alaska, on August 15, 1935 when its engine failed on takeoff, killing both men. Millions around the world mourned his passing.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) British novelist, critic
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Adeline Virginia Stephen was born on January 25, 1882 in London, England. She was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen a literary critic and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. Virginia’s mother was his second wife, Julia Prinsep Jackson Duckworth. Virginia had two brothers, Thoby and Adrian. She was always very close to her older sister Vanessa whom she called ‘Nessa’ who would become a painter and marry art critic Clive Bell. She also had four half-siblings from her father’s first marriage; Laura Makepeace Stephen, George, Gerald (who would found Duckworth and Co. Publishing) and Stella Duckworth. Her father Sir Leslie Stephen laid the foundation for his children’s love of literature by having a massive library in the house. Virginia was known to be an avid reader but would soon reject the traditional mores and values of that generation.

The Stephens often summered at ‘Talland House’ in St. Ives, County Cornwall in the southwest of England along the rocky shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Virginia often recalled the fond memories of these times which had an influence on her writing including visits to a nearby lighthouse. Sadly these happy times ended when her mother died when she was just thirteen years old and she then suffered the first major breakdown of many that would plague her off and on the rest of her life. Following this was the trauma of the death of Stella, who had become like a mother to Virginia and then the death of her father which caused another period of profound depression. As the oldest surviving sibling Vanessa then moved her sister and brothers to another neighborhood in London, Bloomsbury. Virginia began feeling better and by 1905 was writing in earnest both articles and essays, and became a book reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement. She also taught English and History at nearby Morley College in London.

In 1906 Virginia, Vanessa and their brothers traveled to Europe, where Thoby contracted typhoid fever and died. Back in England their home had became a meeting place for both authors and artists. Virginia married left-wing political journalist, author and editor Leonard Woolf on August 10, 1912. They would have no children. In 1914 when World War I broke out they were living in Richmond and Woolf was working on her writing with all her devotion.

Leonard and Virginia would themselves get into the publishing business and together they founded the Hogarth Press in 1917. At the outbreak of WWII the Woolfs were living at their country retreat, ‘Monk’s House’ near the village of Rodmell in Lewes, Sussex. In 1940 they received word that their London home had been destroyed. With the fear of a German invasion looming and Leonard’s Jewish heritage the couple decided to make a suicide pact if the possibility of falling into German hands arose. Leonard was ever vigilant to the onset of the next major depressive episode in his wife; and knew that one was near when she would get migraine headaches and lay sleepless at night. However both her husband and her doctor failed to see to that a major depressive episode would end her life.

Virginia Woolf died on March 28, 1941 after committing suicide. She drowned herself in the River Ouse near their home in Sussex, by putting rocks in her coat pockets. Her body was not found until April. She was then cremated; her ashes spread under two elms at Monks’ House. She had left a note indicating that she felt herself going mad and feared she would not recover.

Woolf was to prove herself to be an innovative and influential 20th Century author. In many of her novels she moves away from the use of plot and structure to employ stream-of-consciousness to emphasize the psychological aspects of her characters. Themes in her works included studies of gender relations, class hierarchy and the consequences of war. She was also among the founders of the Modernist movement which also includes T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.

Virginia Woolf spent much of her life fighting the effects of bi-polar disorder and was frequently hospitalized as a “rest cure”. She attributed much of her suffering from the sexual abuse she received from her half-brother. Much of her work was also colored by her own mental instabilities (she referred to herself as “mad” on many occasions) her confusion about her sexual orientation and her feminist views. Regardless of history’s view Woolf’s prodigious output of diaries, letters, critical reviews, essays, short stories, and novels continue to be the source of much scholarly study.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Will Durant (November 5, 1885–November 7, 1981) American philosopher, historian, writer
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Will Durant was born in North Adams, Massachusetts on November 5, 1885 to French-Canadian parents. His parents Joseph Durant and Mary Allard had been part of the Quebec emigration to the United States. Much is unknown about Will Durant’s early life but it is certain that he was raised with idealistic principles as he spent much of his later life in the fight for equal wages, women’s suffrage and fairer working conditions for the American labor force.

Durant not only wrote on many topics but also worked to put his ideas into effect.
Will Durant has been largely credit with attempting to bring philosophy to the common man. Some of his best known works are: “The Story of Philosophy”, “The Mansions of Philosophy”, and, with the help of his wife, Ariel, wrote “The Story of Civilization”. He also wrote magazine articles that were widely published. .

Will’s early education was by the Jesuits in St. Peter’s Preparatory School and, later, Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City, New Jersey. In 1905, he decided to become a Socialist. He graduated in 1907. He then worked as a reporter for Arthur Brisbane’s New York Evening Journal for ten dollars a week. At the Evening Journal, he gained a following when he wrote several articles on sexual criminals.

In 1907, he also began teaching Latin, French, English and geometry at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. Will also held the post of librarian at the college.
In 1911 he left he left Seton. He became the teacher and chief pupil of the Ferrer Modern School, which was an experiment in libertarian education. While at the Modern School, he fell in love with and married a pupil, thirteen years his junior, Chaya (Ida) Kaufman, whom he later nicknamed “Ariel”. The Durants had one child, a daughter Ethel, and later adopted a son whom they named Louis.

In 1913, he resigned his post as teacher and began lecturing in a Presbyterian church for five- and ten-dollar fees. In 1917, while working on a doctorate in philosophy, Will Durant wrote his first book, Philosophy and the Social Problem. In the paper he discussed the idea that philosophy had not grown because it avoided the actual problems of society. He went on to receive his doctorate in 1917. During this time he was also an instructor at Columbia University. In 1926 he retired from teaching and began writing full-time.

For their work on Rousseau and Revolution, (1967), which is the 10th volume of The Story of Civilization, the Durants were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for literature; later followed by the highest award granted by the United States government to civilians, the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ford in 1977.

The Durants were also well-known for their remarkable love story. They were a memorable couple within their work and outside of it. They detail their love story in the book “Dual Autobiography”. Remarkably even death was not to separate them as they died within two weeks of each other in 1981 (she on October 25 and he on November 7). Fearing what this news would do to her father their daughter, Ethel, and grandchildren strove to keep the death of his Ariel from the ailing Will. Sadly, he learned of it on the evening news, and he himself died at the age of 96. He was buried beside his wife in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Two posthumous works by Will Durant have been published in the last several years, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time (2002) and Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age (2001). His wife Ariel is credited with contributing significantly to these books as well.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Victor Hugo (February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner,
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While Victor Hugo does not have the largest resume of writing he is considered to be one of the most important French Romantic writers. He was a novelist, poet and dramatist and some of his best known works are “The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables.

Victor Hugo was born in Besancon, France on February 26, 1802. He was a sickly infant who barely survived birth and was only kept alive by the devotion of his mother. His father was an army general, who taught young Victor to admire Napoleon as a hero. After his parents separated he was raised and educated in Paris by his mother, where the family settled when Hugo was two. From 1815 to 1818 Hugo attended the Lycee Louis-le Grand in Paris. He began his writing career early by writing tragedies and poetry, and translated Virgil. Hugo’s first collection of poems, Odes Et Poesies Diverses was so well received that it gained him a royal pension from Louis XVIII. As a novelist Hugo made his debut with Han D’Islande in 1823 followed by Bug-Jargal in 1826. In 1822 Hugo married Adele Foucher. She was the daughter of an officer at the ministry of war and historical experts state that she was Victor’s cousin. They had 5 children: Leopold, Leopoldine, Charles, Francois-Victor and Adele.

Hugo gained wider fame with his play “Hernani” written in 1830 and with his famous historical work “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” written in 1831 which became an instant success. Since The Hunchback’s appearance in 1831 the story has became part of popular culture. The novel which is set in 15th century Paris, tells a moving story of a gypsy girl Esmeralda and the deformed bell ringer, Quasimodo, who loves her.

In the 1830s Hugo also published several volumes of lyric poetry. Hugo’s lyrical style was rich, intense and full of powerful sounds and rhythms, and although it followed the popular taste of the period it also had bitter personal tones.

In his later life Hugo became heavily involved in politics as a supporter of the republican form of government. After three unsuccessful attempts, Hugo was finally elected in 1841 to the Academie Francaise. This political triumph was shadowed by the death of Hugo’s daughter Leopoldine in 1843. It was only after a decade that Hugo began again publishing books. He devoted himself to politics, with his emphasis on advocating social justice. He continued to serve in political office and after the 1848 revolution, with the formation of the Second Republic, Hugo was then elected to the Constitutional Assembly and to the Legislative Assembly.

When the coup by Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) took place in 1851, Hugo then believed his life to be in danger. He fled with his family to Brussels and then to Jersey and Guernsey along the English Channel. Hugo’s partly voluntary exile was to last nearly 20 years. During this time period he wrote at Hauteville House some his best works, including Les Chatimets in 1853 and Les Miserables in 1862, which has become the epic story about social injustice.

The political upheaval that continued in France and the proclamation of the Third Republic made Hugo decide to return to France. During the time period of the Paris Commune, Hugo decided to live in Brussels, until he was expelled for sheltering defeated revolutionaries. He then moved to Luxemburg but after a short time of living as a refuge he returned to Paris and was elected senator. His later years were marred by the loss of his daughter, wife and mistress and the need to commit his daughter Adele to an insane asylum. Victor Hugo died in Paris on May 22, 1885 from an infection. He was given a national funeral, which was attended by two million people, and buried in the Pantheon.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Truman Capote (30 September 1924 – 25 August 1984) American novelist, playwright
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Truman Capote was an American novelist, short story writer, and playwright. He gained international fame with his “nonfiction novel” “In Cold Blood” which is an account of a real life crime in which an entire family was murdered by two sociopaths.

Truman was born in New Orleans. His father was a salesman and his mother 16-year-old beauty queen, Lillie Mae Faulk. His father, Archulus Persons, worked as a clerk for a steamboat company. Persons was never able to hold any job for long, and was always leaving home in search of new opportunities. This led to an unhappy marriage which gradually disintegrated. When Capote was only four, his parents divorced.

Truman spent his youth in Monroeville, Alabama. He lived many years with his relatives, one of whom became the model for the loving, elderly spinster of the author’s novels, stories, and plays. Truman’s contact with his mother, Lillie Mae, was limited she often wrote letters and telephoned her son, crying that she had no money and no husband.

When Capote’s mother married again, this time to a well-to-do businessman, Truman moved to New York, and adopted his stepfather’s surname. He attended the Trinity School and St. John’s Academy in New York, and the public schools of Greenwich, Connecticut. At the age of seventeen, Capote chose to end his formal schooling. He was able to find work at the New Yorker, where he attracted attention with his eccentric style of dress.

Capote’s early stories were published in many quality magazines and in 1946 he won the O.Henry award. During this time Capote established his fame among the cultural circles as the thin voiced, promising young writer, who could brighten up parties with his sharp and clever remarks.

During the next year Truman went to Europe, where he wrote fiction and non-fiction. Among his major works at the time was a profile of Marlon Brando. Following return to the United States in 1958, Truman wrote “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. Truman’s increasing preoccupation with journalism formed the basis for his bestseller “In Cold Blood”, a pioneering work of documentary novel or “nonfiction novel”. The work started from an article in The New York Times. The research work and writing of the book took six years to finish. Truman used neither a tape recorder nor note pad, but emptied his interviews and impressions into notebooks at the end of his day

Truman continued to write but problems with drink and drugs, and disputes with other writers, such as Gore Vidal, exhausted Capote’s creative energies. In interviews, Truman’s habit of giving negative anecdotes about the people he knew distanced him from his friends.

Truman lived the life of an open homosexual and was known for his eccentric ways. On November 28th, 1966, he threw one of the most spectacular bashes in the history of New York, the Black and White Ball which was held at the Plaza Hotel. The ball was given in honor of Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham, who was then the most powerful woman in the country. The gala celebration began at ten and went until breakfast the following morning. Approximately five hundred people from the most stellar reaches of society were invited and were given a precise dress code. Men were expected in black tie, with black mask; women in black or white dress with a white mask, plus a fan. The blowout created front page news all over the country.

Truman Capote died in Los Angeles, California, on August 26, 1984, of liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication. His life and work have inspired numerous books and movies about him.

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SUMMARY: Wayne Gretzky (b. January 26, 1961) American ice hockey player
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Wayne Gretzky was born on January 26, 1961 in the town of Brantford, Ontario, Canada. He began his passion to play hockey in a backyard rink with his father Walter Gretzky and attributes his strong values to his mother Phyllis Gretzky. His father would flood the backyard using a sprinkler to turn the ice into a hockey rink for Wayne and his brothers. Even at the young age of eleven, Wayne Gretzky began raising many eyebrows on the ice by collecting 517 points in a season. At only seventeen years old, he led Team Canada to a bronze medal in the World Junior championship, topping the tournament with 17 points in six games. Wayne Gretzky began his professional career with the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association in 1978 shortly before he turned 18 years old. He was traded to the Edmonton Oilers in 1978-79 and began his National Hockey League career when the Edmonton Oilers moved from the WHA to the National Hockey League during the 1979-80 season. Gretzky delighted fans in his first year, scoring 137 points but missed the Art Ross Trophy as Marcel Dionne had one more goal. But the young hockey phenomenon was awarded the Hart Memorial trophy as the most valuable player in the National Hockey League.

Gretzky would go on to make hockey history by winning seven straight Art Ross Trophies, and ten in total. He broke and then set long-standing hockey records for most goals in a season (92), assists (163) and points (215). He also led the Edmonton Oilers to four Stanley Cup Championships during the 1980’s. Gretzky will always be remembered for his play in the 1987 Canada Cup final that landed Team Canada the gold medal. His pass to a streaking Mario Lemieux was to lead to the game winning goal, late in the third period. Wayne’s hockey career in Edmonton came to an end in 1988 when he was traded to the Los Angles Kings. Rumors have speculated that the Oilers might have had little choice due to their financial woes, but hockey fans in Canada were in a state of shock and disbelief.

Edmonton’s loss was certainly LA’s hockey gain as Gretzky was to usher in a new era for hockey in Southern California. He surpassed hockey legend Gordie Howe’s records of all-time goals and points leader and had a very successful seven year stint in LA. In 1993 he even led the Kings team all the way to the Stanley Cup final, where they lost to the Montreal Canadians. At the trade deadline in 1996 he was traded to the St. Louis Blues for several other players and two draft picks. Wayne Gretzky would only be a Blue for the remainder of the 1996-97 season as he then signed on with the New York Rangers as an unrestricted free agent and retired from the game he loves in 1999. Wayne had been involved in hockey since his retirement in many ways most notably as a minority owner with the Phoenix Coyotes. In 2005, Gretzky made his return to the National Hockey League, not as a player but as head coach of the Coyotes.

Off the ice Gretzky life has been equally memorable. Gretzky met the blond and leggy American actress Janet Jones in 1984 when he was a judge on Dance Fever and she was a dancer on the show. They ran into each other again at a Los Angeles Lakers game in 1987 and became inseparable. Janet was four months pregnant with daughter Paulina when they married on July 17, 1988. Their wedding which was dubbed “The Royal Wedding” was broadcast live throughout Canada from Edmonton’s St. Joseph’s Basilica, ironically though neither Gretzky nor Jones is Roman Catholic. Members of the Fire Department even acted as guards at the church steps. The cost of the event was reportedly over $1 million. Gretzky obtained American citizenship after the wedding, and has since resided in the United States. He and his wife have since had four other children: Ty Robert (born July 9, 1990), Trevor Douglas (born September 14, 1992), Tristan Wayne (born August 2, 2000), and Emma Marie (born March 28, 2003).

Wayne Gretzky has been nicknamed, “The Great One” and is considered the greatest hockey player of all time.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) American third U.S. President
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The third president of the United States of America and a powerful advocate of liberty was born April 3, 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia. Thomas Jefferson inherited from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, and then went on to practice or “read” law as it was known in his day. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a young widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello. It was at Monticello that they had six children: Martha Jefferson Randolph (1772–1836), Jane Randolph (1774–1775), a stillborn or unnamed son (1777), Mary Wayles (1778–1804), Lucy Elizabeth (1780–1781), and Lucy Elizabeth (1782–1785). Martha died on September 6, 1782 and Jefferson never remarried. It has been stated but never fully proven that Jefferson may also have been the father of several children with his slave Sally Hemings.

Thomas was freckled and sandy-haired and was often described as being rather tall and awkward. While Jefferson was eloquent as a correspondent, he was not public speaker. While he was in the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the patriot cause. Acting as the “silent member” of the Congress, Jefferson, age 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence. In the following years he labored diligently to make its words a reality in Virginia. One of his most notable achievements was when he wrote a bill establishing religious freedom, enacted in 1786.

Jefferson succeeded the popular Benjamin Franklin as minister to France in 1785. His very public sympathy for the French Revolution led him into conflict with Alexander Hamilton when Jefferson was Secretary of State in President Washington’s Cabinet. Disillusioned with politics he resigned in 1793.

It was during this time that sharp political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began to form. Jefferson went on to gradually assume leadership of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France. His opinions vigorously attacked Federalist policies and he opposed a strong centralized Government and championed the rights of states.

Thomas Jefferson became a reluctant candidate for President in 1796 and came within three votes of election. History buffs are delighted that through a flaw in the Constitution, he became Vice President, although he was an opponent of President Adams. Yet in 1800 this defect caused a more serious problem when Republican electors, attempting to name both a President and a Vice President from their own party, cast a tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives went on to settle the tie. Ironically it was his old nemesis Alexander Hamilton who championed Jefferson’s election to the presidency.

When Jefferson had assumed the Presidency, the crisis in France had already passed. One of his first acts as President was to slash Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminate the tax on whiskey (that was wildly unpopular in the West,) and still manage to reduce the national debt by a third. He also became a foreign policy President when he sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean. Further, while the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803.
During Jefferson’s second term as President, he became increasingly preoccupied with keeping the nation from involvement in the Napoleonic wars. He worked constantly on this though both England and France interfered with the neutral rights of American merchantmen. Jefferson’s attempted solution to this conflict was an embargo upon American shipping, which worked badly and was unpopular.

After two terms as President, Jefferson retired to Monticello to ponder such projects as his grand designs for the University of Virginia.
He died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Ironically he died just a few hours before the death of John Adams, co-signer of the Declaration of Independence, one time political rival and later friend and correspondent.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: T. S. Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) American poet, dramatist, literary critic.
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Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri, to an old and prominent New England family. His father, Henry Ware Eliot was a successful businessman, who was president and treasurer of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company in St. Louis; his mother, who was born Charlotte Champe Stearns wrote poems and was also a social worker. Eliot was the last of his parents six surviving children; his parents were both 44 years old when he was born.

He went on to become a poet, dramist and literary critic. He was educated at Harvard and did graduate work in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and Merton College, Oxford. It was during his years at Harvard that his poems were first published. He also spent an influential year in Paris at the Sorbonne and much of this time influenced his later writings. He went on to settle in England in 1914 at the age of 25. While there he was for a time a schoolmaster and a bank clerk, and eventually a literary editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber. He later became a director there. He founded Criterion which became an exclusive and influential literary journal during the seventeen years of its publication (1922-1939). In 1927, at the age of 39 Eliot decided to become a British citizen and about the same time he entered the Anglican Church. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948

While in England he was introduced to Cambridge governess Vivienne Haigh-Wood. Eliot was not happy studying at Merton and declined a second year there. Instead on June 26, 1915, he married Vivienne in a register office. After a short visit, without his new wife, to the U. S. to see his family, he returned to London and took a few teaching jobs such as lecturing at Birkbeck College, University of London. He continued to work on his dissertation and in 1916, sent it to Harvard, which accepted it. Yet because he did not appear in person to defend his dissertation, however, he was not awarded his PhD.

His marriage to Vivienne was not a happy one and by 1932, Eliot had been contemplating a separation from his wife for some time. When Harvard University offered him the Charles Eliot Norton professorship for the 1932-1933 academic year, he quickly accepted, leaving Vivien in England. When he returned in 1933, Eliot officially separated from Vivienne. He managed to avoid all but one meeting with his wife between his leaving for America in 1932 and her death in 1947. Vivienne died at Northumberland House, a mental hospital north of London, after she was committed in 1938.

Eliot’s second marriage was short but much happier. He married Esme Valerie Fletcher on January 10, 1957. In sharp contrast to his first marriage, Eliot knew Miss Fletcher well, as she had been his secretary since August 1949. The wedding was kept a secret to preserve his privacy. The ceremony was held in a church at 6:15 a.m. with virtually no one other than his wife’s parents in attendance. Valerie was 37 years younger than her famous husband. After Eliot’s death she dedicated her time to preserving his legacy.

Eliot is considered to be one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. He followed his belief that poetry should aim at a representation of the complexities of modern civilization in language and that such a representation necessarily leads to difficult poetry. Despite this difficulty in his writing his influence on modern poetic diction has been immense.

T.S. Eliot died on January 4, 1965 of emphysema in London. He had suffered with health problems for many years owing to the combination of London air and his heavy smoking, and was often being laid low with bronchitis or tachycardia. His body was then cremated and, according to Eliot’s wishes, the ashes were then taken to St Michael’s Church in East Coker, the village from which Eliot’s ancestors emigrated to America. There only a simple plaque commemorates him.

A list of T.S. Eliot works include:

• Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)
• Preludes (1917)
• The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
• Poems (1920)
• Gerontion
• Sweeney Among the Nightingales
• The Waste Land (1922)
• The Hollow Men (1925)
• Ariel Poems (1927-1954)
• The Journey of the Magi (1927)
• Ash Wednesday (1930)
• Coriolan (1931)
• Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939)

Plays
• Sweeney Agonistes (published in 1926, first performed in 1934)
• The Rock (1934)
• Murder in the Cathedral (1935)
• The Family Reunion (1939)
• The Cocktail Party (1949)
• The Confidential Clerk (1953)
• The Elder Statesman (first performed in 1958, published in 1959)

Nonfiction
• The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920)
• The Second-Order Mind (1920)
• “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1920)
• Homage to John Dryden (1924)
• Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca (1928)
• For Lancelot Andrewes (1928)
• Dante (1929)
• Selected Essays, 1917–1932 (1932)
• The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933)
• After Strange Gods (1934)
• Elizabethan Essays (1934)
• Essays Ancient and Modern (1936)
• The Idea of a Christian Society (1940)
• Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948)
• Poetry and Drama (1951)
• The Three Voices of Poetry (1954)
• “The Frontiers of Criticism” (1956)
• On Poetry and Poets (1957)

Posthumous publications
• To Criticize the Critic (1965)
• The Waste Land: Facsimile Edition (1974)
• Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917 1996

Filed Under: Biography

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