Next month the London Review of Books will host an event to mark the 100th anniversary of T. S Eliot entering the world of publishing.

On 23 April 1925, Eliot was officially invited by Geoffrey Faber to join the newly founded publishing house of Faber & Gwyer. It was to prove the most momentous appointment in the history of 20th-century poetry in English. Among Faber & Gwyer’s first books was Eliot’s Poems 1909-1925, which included ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, The Waste Land, and ‘The Hollow Men’. As pioneering talent scout for Faber & Gwyer (which would become Faber & Faber in 1929), Eliot launched the careers of poets such as W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, David Jones and Stephen Spender, and oversaw the publication of the work of the poet who had discovered him, Ezra Pound.

Exactly a hundred years on, poet and critic Mark Ford, Emeritus Professor of English at Sheffield John Haffenden, former Faber managing director Toby Faber, and Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton Aakanksha Virkar will be discussing the events leading up to Eliot’s appointment, and his early years with the firm that would become virtually synonymous with his name.

The event will take place at the London Review Bookshop on 23 April 2025 at 7pm. Tickets can be booked here.