T. S. Eliot

Russell taught Eliot, became a close friend, and seemingly slept with his wife. Pound helped get his early work published, named him “Old Possum”, and was ‘The Waste Land’s dedicatee. Woolf published his second book and recognised that his poetry came out of his torments. The young Betjeman was one of his pupils. Alain-Fournier taught him French, Stravinsky was a friend and collaborator, and Lewis, his stern critic, ended up a friend. Marx visited Eliot in London, and Lowell described him “dashingly dancing.” Eliot published Auden, Spender, MacNeice and Muir, but turned down a long poem by MacDiarmid as uncommercial.