COLLECTED POEMS 1909 - 1935. (With two letters from Eliot tipped in)

Fourth impression: 191 pages, original blue cloth, top edge dyed light red, other edges uncut and lightly foxed, the spine of the dust jacket is faded, it is price clipped and chipped along the edges.

Signature of Professor Oswald Doughty, professor of English Literature at the University of Cape Town and author of A Victorian Romantic. Dante Gabriel Rosetti  (1949) on the front free endpaper.

Two typescript letters from Eliot to Doughty, written during Eliot’s second visit to South Africa in early 1954, are tipped onto the front paste-down endpaper.

In the first, written from the Caister Hotel, Durban, 24 January 1953 (but corrected to 1954) thanks Doughty for his invitation to speak at the University of Cape Town during his forthcoming visit but declines on the ground of the advice of his doctor, ‘But this visit is not only a holiday, but a holiday taken under doctor’s orders – that is to say, my physician ordered me out of England in January and February, and I chose to carry out his instructions by a visit to the Cape. It would obviously defeat my purpose, were I to undertake any public engagements of this kind: I have been badly in need of rest, and to me such public appearances are very exhausting indeed. So I am obliged to decline.’

In the second letter written from Molenvliet, Stellenbosch on 25th February 1954, Eliot thanks Doughty for sending him an inscribed copy of his Life of Rossetti (sic). He continues, ‘I sail tomorrow for England, and therefore have not time to comment now on the very striking parallels you draw; but I hope that I may write again after I have read your book. Rossetti’s poetry was very important to me at early stage of my development.’

A third letter, loosely inserted, from Eliot’s secretary, dated 22nd December 1955, grants Doughty permission to quote his comments about Rosetti made in the letter of 25th February 1954.

Eliot made two visits to South Africa. The first in 1950 and again in 1954, accompanied by Sir Geoffrey and Lady Faber, when he addressed a Foyle’s Literary Luncheon on Friday, 19th February at the Vineyard Hotel. Doughty attended this lunch.