Photographer unknown; from the collection of the T. S. Eliot Estate

Vivien Eliot Diaries

The four surviving diaries of Vivien Eliot, presented year by year, month by month.

Photographer unknown; from the collection of the T. S. Eliot Estate

Years

1914

Vivien's laconic account of her first, volatile engagement to a young man called Buckle, its triumphs and deceptions, till it ends with the declaration of war. She is twenty-six.

1919

Vivien's fourth year of marriage. The war has ended and Eliot's father dies. Social life begins again. A swift domestic chronicle of Bloomsbury parties, visits to the Ballets Russes, dancing and seaside holidays, a trip to the Dolmetsch family with Ezra Pound.

1920

Continuation of Bodleian MS.Eng.Misc.f.532: those entries for the New Year found at the end of Vivien's 1919 Diary.

1934

The Eliots' marriage has come to an end, but the year is dogged by unfinished legalities, particularly Eliot's attempts to retrieve his library and silver from the flat they once shared. An intimate daily record of Vivien's continued suffering and increasingly uneasy grip on reality.

1935

Vivien's difficulties continue, but her life perceptibly improves as she takes refuge in recuperative breaks of hotel life, a visit to Paris, and, finally, an invigorating new career studying music in the Royal Academy of Music. In November she meets Eliot for the first time since their separation in 1933.

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