Widow of Nobel laureate T.S. Eliot, 86
Valerie Eliot, the widow of T.S. Eliot and guardian of thepoet’s literary legacy for almost half a century, has died. She was 86.
In a statement Sunday, the Eliot estate said Valerie Eliot died two days before ather London home after a short illness.
Born Valerie Fletcher in Leeds, northern England, on Aug. 17, 1926, Eliot was the second wife of the U.S.-born Nobel literature laureate. She met him at London publisher Faber & Faber, where he was a director and she a star-struck secretary who had been a fan of his work since her teenage years.
The two wed in 1957, and friends described the marriageas a happy one despite the almost 40-year gap in their ages. The poet’s first marriage, to the mercurial Vivienne Haigh-Wood, had been unhappy; she died in an asylum in 1947.
After T.S. Eliot’s death in 1965, Valerie Eliot became his executor, editing his poems and letters for publication and steadfastly refusing to cooperate with would-be biographers, in keeping with the poet’s last wishes.
She did, however, welcome the unlikely idea of a stage musical based on a volume of Eliot’s whimsical verses, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. It became the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats, a global hit that pulled in huge sums for the Eliot estate.
Valerie Eliot used some of the windfall to set up a literary charity, Old Possum’s Practical Trust. She also funded the T.S. Eliot Prize, an annual award for poetry.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 8 on 11/12/2012