T.S. Eliot

Important events in his life

1888: September 26: Thomas Stearns Eliot is born in St. Louis, Missouri to Henry Ware and Charlotte Stearns Eliot.

1898: T.S. Eliot becomes a student at Smith Academy in St. Louis.

1905: Eliot goes to Milton Academy in Massachusetts.

1910-11: After finishing Bachelors and Masters Degrees at Harvard, he spends a year in Sorbonne, Paris.

1911-14: Eliot returns to Harvard to study philosophy as a graduate student.

 1914: T.S. Eliot goes to England and meets Ezra Pound.

1915: Marries Vivien Haigh-Wood on June 26th.

1916: Eliot begins working as teacher at Highgate Junior School.

1917: Eliot takes a position at Lloyds Bank in the Colonial and Foreign Department.

1921: Since he was feeling very sick and worn out, Eliot takes some time off from Lloyds Bank.  He finishes the drafts of The Waste Land during this break.

1922: The Waste Land published (one of his most famous poems).

1925: Poems 1909-1925 published. Eliot joins the publishing house of Faber & Gwyer, and leaves Lloyds bank.

1927: T.S. Eliot enters the Church of England and gets his British citizenship.

1933: Obtains legal separation from Vivien because he had a bad marriage and didn’t want a divorce.

1947: Vivien Eliot dies.

1948: Wins Nobel Prize for Literature.

1957: Married Valerie Fletcher on January 10.

1963: Collected Poems 1909-1962.

1965: Dies on January 4th.