Listen to Dr. Megan Quigley, as she joins T. S. Eliot experts Frances Dickey and John Whittier-Ferguson on a podcast to discuss the revelations of the Hale archive: 1, 131 letters written by T. S. Eliot to his longtime love and correspondent, Emily Hale (pictured below). The letters, called the most famous sealed literary archive in the world, were under lock and key at Princeton’s Firestone library until 50 years after the deaths of Eliot and Hale.
Their contents have transformed what scholars thought they knew about Eliot, as he points out his sources, undermines key ways we interpret his works—such as Modernist impersonality—and confesses his dreams and goals. And then he burns her side of the correspondence!
Matt Seybold is the host on this episode of the American Vandal podcast.