Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965)

Awarded the Prize “for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry.”

British poet and literary critic. Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 26, 1888. He was educated at Harvard and did graduate work in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and Merton College, Oxford. He settled in England, where he was for a time a school and a bank clerk, and eventually literary editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber, of which he later became a director. He founded and, edited the exclusive and influential literary journal Criterion. In 1927, Eliot became a British citizen. Eliot died in London on January 4, 1965.
Major Works:
The Waste Land (1922); Ash Wednesday (1930); Murder in the Cathedral (1935); The Family Reunion (1939); Four Quartets (1943); The Cocktail Party (1949); The Elder Statesman (1959)