Valerie Eliot husband's work "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats". This became the hit Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Cats". With her portion of the proceeds Valerie Eliot established "Old Possum's Practical Trust" – a literary registered charity – and funded the T. S. Eliot Prize. In late 2009, the second volume of Eliot's letters was published. The third volume, edited by Valerie Eliot and John Haffenden, followed in July 2012. She donated the £15,000 annual prize money for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Valerie Eliot died on 9 November 2012 at her home in London. Valerie Eliot Esmé Valerie Eliot (née Fletcher;
T. S. Eliot for the authorship of one scene and the choruses. George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester, had been instrumental in connecting Eliot with producer E. Martin Browne for the production of "The Rock", and later commissioned Eliot to write another play for the Canterbury Festival in 1935. This one, "Murder in the Cathedral", concerning the death of the martyr, Thomas Becket, was more under Eliot's control. Eliot biographer Peter Ackroyd comments that "for [Eliot], "Murder in the Cathedral" and succeeding verse plays offered a double advantage; it allowed him to practice poetry but it also offered a convenient home for his