T. S. Matthews 'newsmagazine' was as if F. Scott Fitzgerald were Secretary of State," Swanberg wrote. Swanberg also characterized Matthews as being “as close to being politically obtuse as such an otherwise cultivated man could be.” Princeton University holds his papers, which include writings, notebooks, correspondence, files from "Time" (1940s, 1950s, including the "Time-in-Britain" project), subject files, legal and financial correspondence, photographs, and printed material from 1910 to 1991. These include datebooks 1950-1991. Correspondents include John Aldridge, Whittaker Chambers, T. S. Eliot, Valerie Eliot, Robert Graves, Eleanor Green, Laura (Riding) Jackson, Schuyler Jackson, Len Lye, Laurie Lee, William Piel Jr., V. S. Pritchett,
T. S. Eliot [Eliot] invented, let alone how much of it is a reaction against him or indeed a consequence of misreading him. He is a very penetrating influence, perhaps not unlike the east wind." In his critical essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent", Eliot argues that art must be understood not in a vacuum, but in the context of previous pieces of art. "In a peculiar sense [an artist or poet] ... must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past." This essay was an important influence over the New Criticism by introducing the idea that the value of a work