Mary and Mr. Eliot: A Sort of Love Story

by Mary Trevelyan, Erica Wagner

Overview

Mary and Mr. Eliot is a twin portrait of T. S. Eliot and its author, the formidable Mary Trevelyan.

In 1938 T. S. Eliot, already “a Classic in his lifetime,” struck up a friendship with Mary Trevelyan. This passionately curious woman, an intrepid traveler who, like Eliot, was deeply involved in the affairs of the Church of England, served as the warden of the Student Movement House, mere yards from the poet and editor’s office at Faber and Faber.

Their relationship was domestic rather than artistic, characterized by churchgoing, conversation, record-playing, day trips to the English countryside with Mary at the wheel of the car Tom bought her, and Eliot cooking up sausages in his shirtsleeves. Over the years, their friendship deepened, and she came to believe it might grow into something more. Twice she proposed marriage, but Eliot always led her to understand that any such commitment would be impossible for him. Then the revelation of his long attachment to Emily Hale—and the sudden shock of his marriage to his secretary, Valerie Fletcher—caused a rupture between Trevelyan and the poet that could not be overcome.

Mary Trevelyan left a unique chronicle—including diaries, letters, and pictures—that charts their twenty-year relationship. Now Erica Wagner has given it shape and context, bringing this untold story to light for the first time. Mary and Mr. Eliot is a tale of joy, misunderstanding, and betrayal that feels utterly modern and deeply human.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250321831
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	03/19/2024
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.37(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Mary Trevelyan (1881–1966) was a noted humanitarian and commentator on British culture and society. From 1938 to 1957, she was a close friend of T. S. Eliot. She left an unpublished manuscript, The Pope of Russell Square, about their relationship, which has been edited and expanded by Erica Wagner.

Erica Wagner is the author of Gravity: Stories; Ariel's Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the Story of Birthday Letters and Seizure: A Novel. Pas de Deux/A Concert of Stories, co-written with storyteller Abbi Patrix and musician and composer Linda Edsjö, tours around the world. Twice a judge of the Man Booker Prize, she was literary editor of The Times for for seventeen years, and she is now a contributing writer for New Statesman and consulting literary editor for Harper's Bazaar, as well as writing for many publications in Britain and the United States. She is the editor of First Light: A Celebration of Alan Garner, which has just been published by Unbound.

ericawagner.co.uk / @EricaWgnr

Editorial Reviews

"Erica Wagner brings the secret history of T. S. Eliot and Mary Trevelyan to light in this gripping account of friendship, repressed desire, and heartbreak. Trevelyan was Eliot’s loyal companion for nearly twenty years. Over intimate dinners and long country drives, he confided in her about his anxieties, desires, and haunting memories of his first wife Vivienne. But the platonic relationship ended abruptly. Trevelyan’s revelatory manuscript offers a surprisingly fresh portrait of ‘Tom’ Eliot, and her own dashed hopes for a life together." —Heather Clark author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

"Reading this elegant, clever and moving book is like looking at Eliot through a lancet window: we get a tightly-focused and revealing view of one of his most important friendships, and a valuable understanding of how it relates to the panorama of his whole personality. An exemplary ’sort of’ biography." —Andrew Motion, author of Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life

“A completely fascinating, revelatory exposure of a forgotten corner of T. S. Eliot’s amatory life—brilliantly curated, edited and annotated by Erica Wagner. A classic of its kind.” —William Boyd, author of Trio

"[Mary and Mr. Eliot] is more than a memoir of knowing a famous poet; it’s a dual portrait of a woman who hides nothing and a celebrity given to secrecy . . . How deftly Wagner transforms a scrapbook filled with gems into a revealing and ultimately tragic story." —Lyndall Gordon, author of Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World

"Mary & Mr Eliot is a testament to Trevelyan, who, as Wagner goes to great lengths to point out, was much more than Eliot’s friend . . . it is impossible to read the book and not be struck by her energy, determination and strength." —Tom Williams, The Spectator

‘Erica Wagner shows herself to be a forensically astute reader of the memoir and letters that Trevelyan left behind.’ —Kathryn Hughes, Sunday Times

From the Publisher

11/14/2022

In this illuminating volume, New Statesman contributor Wagner (Chief Engineer) collects the writings of Mary Trevelyan (1897–1983)—who is best remembered in her native England for her charitable work—on her friendship with poet T.S. Eliot. Wagner contextualizes the journal entries, correspondence, and remembrances that make up Trevelyan’s unpublished manuscript, The Pope of Russell Square, which covers Trevelyan and Eliot’s two-decade friendship that began when she invited him to read at a Student Christian Movement conference in 1936. “This is a portrait of a romance as much as it is an account of a friendship,” Wagner writes, observing that Trevelyan had hoped her friendship with Eliot would become romantic until she was blindsided by his decision to elope with his secretary in 1957, after which Trevelyan and Eliot grew estranged. While Eliot scholars will be intrigued by Trevelyan’s perspective on him, accounts of Trevelyan’s leadership at the Student Movement House hostel for international students in London and involvement with the YMCA during WWII prove more captivating than her quotidian exchanges with the poet. Though readers may come for Eliot, it’s Trevelyan who will win them over. Photos. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2023-01-06
The story of the friendship between T.S. Eliot and a woman who pined for more.

Trevelyan (1897-1983) was the warden of London’s Student Movement House, which provided housing for British and foreign students. She also traveled widely throughout Africa, India, and Asia as part of “her mission to make foreign students feel part of English cultural life.” In 1936, she invited Eliot to read for her students at the Student Christian Movement Conference in Derbyshire. Thus began a two-decade friendship that Trevelyan chronicled in an unpublished diary, The Pope of Russell Square. Wagner, a contributing writer for theNew Statesman,excerpts parts of Trevelyan’s diaries and correspondence with Eliot in this book, interspersed with her own commentary. Entries range from 1938 until 1957, when Trevelyan, who had hoped their friendship could evolve into a romance, was shocked to learn that Eliot was to marry his secretary, Valerie Fletcher, nearly 40 years his junior, a revelation that “hurt her profoundly.” Unfortunately, her story focuses less on her accomplishments and more on quotidian details of her time with Eliot. In 1955, after attending an All Saints’ Day service, Eliot told Trevelyan, “People are so afraid of repetition—they don’t seem to realise that it is the essence of poetry.” That may be true for poetry, but in a diary, repetitiveness gets wearying in the absence of tension or sufficient variation. Much of Trevelyan’s diary describes meals eaten together, church services attended, vacations taken, and so on, which makes for dull reading. Wagner’s commentary helps but doesn’t fully alleviate the monotony. Eliot devotees will appreciate this peek into his personal life even though, admirably, Wagner doesn’t sugarcoat his bigotry, including his antisemitism and his reference to the “little brown men” of Burma, which Wagner calls “a glimpse of the prejudice which still taints his reputation”—a fact, she is careful to note, Trevelyan was willing to overlook.

A revealing if tedious account of life with one of the 20th century’s most famous poets.

Kirkus Reviews