The Waste Land

** Chosen as a New Statesman, Financial Times, Observer and Sunday Times Book of the Year **

A riveting account of the making of T. S. Eliot¿s celebrated poem The Waste Land on its centenary.

¿A rattling good story¿ Sunday Telegraph
¿A work of art¿ Times Literary Supplement

The Waste Land has been called the ¿World¿s Greatest Poem¿. It is said to describe the moral decay of a world after war, to find meaning in a meaningless era. It has been labelled the most truthful poem of its time; it has been branded a masterful fake. A century after its publication in 1922, T. S. Eliot¿s enigmatic masterpiece remains one of the most influential works ever written, and yet one of the most mysterious.

In a remarkable feat of biography, Matthew Hollis reconstructs the intellectual creation of the poem and brings the material reality of its charged times vividly to life. Presen