In 1938, the poet T.S Eliot struck up a friendship with Mary Trevelyan, a passionately curious woman and an intrepid traveller. Their relationship was cosy and domestic – characterised by churchgoing, record-playing, day trips with Mary at the wheel or Eliot in his rolled shirtsleeves, cooking up sausages for dinner. Over the years, Mary came to believe that the friendship might lead t something more…but their journey did not end as she would have hoped.
Trevelyan left a unique document – of diaries, letters and pictures – charting their twenty-year-long relationship. Erica Wagner has deftly woven together this untold story for the first time. You can purchase the book here.