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Lead book review

Hide and seek with T.S. Eliot

Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue explore the essential weirdness of Eliot’s poetry in a way that has never been done before

12 December 2015

9:00 AM

12 December 2015

9:00 AM

The Poems of T.S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems edited by Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue

Faber, pp.1344, £40, ISBN: 9780571238705

The Poems of T.S. Eliot Volume II: Practical Cats and Further Verses edited by Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue

Faber, pp.688, £40, ISBN: 9780571238712

When The Waste Land first appeared, there were rumours that it was a hoax. It seemed so strange: 400 lines in many languages, and even the sections that were in English looked as if the author was only teasing. ‘Twit twit twit’ ran one line: ‘Jug jug jug jug jug jug.’

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'The Poems of T.S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems', £34 and 'The Poems of T.S. Eliot Volume II: Practical Cats and Further Verses', £34 are available from the Spectator Bookshop, Tel: 08430 600033

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