Finding 7: T.S. Eliot Letter

While it is unclear how the two became acquainted, T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), the noted poet, playwright, and winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature, was a personal friend of James J. Sweeney. Sweeney, a literature scholar, rare-books collector, and editor of James Joyce’s Work in Progress, was an accomplished writer in his own right. This letter, thanking Sweeney for recent gifts of an African sculpture book and a pamphlet on Spanish artist Joan Miro, reveals Eliot’s interest in art and the sharing of expertise between the two accomplished intellectuals.  

In addition to the Eliot letter, the Sweeney records contain a number of letters to and from other well-know academics, including I. A. Richards and Barry Faulkner.

—Pete Asch, archives assistant