{"id":18172,"date":"2025-04-23T20:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T20:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/?p=18172"},"modified":"2025-04-24T15:34:27","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T15:34:27","slug":"100-years-since-t-s-eliot-entered-the-world-of-publishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/100-years-since-t-s-eliot-entered-the-world-of-publishing\/","title":{"rendered":"100 years since T. S. Eliot entered the world of publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

2025 marks one hundred years since T. S. Eliot began his career in publishing. On 23rd<\/sup> April 1925, Eliot was invited to join the newly formed publishing house of Faber & Gwyer as one of its Directors by the firm\u2019s Chairman, Geoffrey Faber.<\/p>\n

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Portrait of Charles Whibley by Gerald Kelly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It all began with an introduction from Eliot\u2019s friend and Criterion<\/em> contributor, Charles Whibley, in the autumn of 1924. Whibley, a journalist, author, and editor, had \u2018warmly recommended\u2019 Eliot to Geoffrey Faber who was then running the small Scientific Press which specialised in publishing medical books and the highly successful weekly paper, The Nursing Mirror<\/em>. The Scientific Press was in the process of diversifying the business, and listed on Geoffrey Faber\u2019s memorandum of proposed ideas for the firm was the addition of a literary magazine to publish. The Criterion<\/em> and its editor, with his literary connections and business experience from the world of banking, were just what he was after.<\/p>\n

Faber and Eliot\u2019s first meeting took place at Faber\u2019s London home on the 1st<\/sup> December 1924. That evening, Faber noted in his diary that they had \u2018had a long and interesting talk about The Criterion<\/em>\u2019. Eliot recalled their first meeting some thirty-five years later at the memorial service for Faber:<\/p>\n

\u2018For personal reasons, I had found it necessary to change my means of livelihood, and to seek a new position which should also give some assurance of permanence. Faber, on the other hand, was looking only for a writer with some reputation among the young, who could attract the promising authors of the younger generation as well as of our own \u2026 He wanted an informal adviser and, in fact, a \u201ctalent scout\u201d. My name had been suggested to him with warm commendation by my elder friend Charles Whibley, on an occasion when Whibley was a weekend guest at All Souls. I do not remember how it was, during the evening\u2019s conversation between Faber and myself, that our two designs became identical. I suspect that it was merely that we took to each other.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Valerie Eliot made a home recording of Eliot reading his memorial address \u2013 an extract from the recording is made available for the first time below.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Above: manuscript draft of Eliot’s address for Geoffrey Faber’s memorial service. Below: audio clip from Valerie Eliot’s home recording of Eliot reading the address.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n