The revealing of the hidden muse - Emily Hale - the Hyacinth Girl of the famous The Waste Land poem - who influenced the life and art of T. S. Eliot. Over 1000 letters of his to her have only now been unlocked. Lyndall Gordon brings us a new way to view the great poet to coincide with the centenary publication of The Waste Land.
`Extraordinary. . . . a rare work of sympathy and insight. Lyndall Gordon's passionately intelligent engagement with the letters between T.S. Eliot and Emily Hale is matched by her close reading of Eliot's poems. Her ability to see both complexity and simplicity in the relationship between Eliot and Hale means that their entangled world comes fully alive in this brilliant book'
-Colm Tóibín
`The true nature of T.S. Eliot's love for his American muse, Emily Hale, has been nearly wholly hidden until now. . . A revelatory book."
-Erica Wagner
`There is no finer guide into the mind of T.S. Eliot than Lyndall Gordon...The Hyacinth Girl reimagines one of the great literary love stories of the twentieth century. Eliot's letters-smoldering with poetic ambition, repressed desire, and religious conviction-confirm Hale's central role in The Waste Land and Four Quartets. Thanks to Gordon's meticulous research and inspired storytelling, we will never read these poems the same way again: It turns out that the great poet of 'impersonality' was baring his soul all along. Emily Hale, too, finally gets her due in this brilliant and revelatory work from one of our greatest biographers."
-Heather Clark, author Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
