Valerie Eliot it." Following T. S. Eliot's 1965 death, Valerie Eliot was his most important editor and literary executor, having brought to press "The Waste Land: Facsimile and Manuscripts of the Original Drafts" (1971) and " The Letters of T. S. Eliot: Volume 1, 1898–1922" (1989). She assisted Christopher Ricks with his edition of "The Inventions of the March Hare" (1996), a volume of Eliot's unpublished verse. A long-delayed second volume of T. S. Eliot's letters was also edited by her. One of Valerie Eliot's most lucrative decisions as executor was granting permission for a stage musical to be based on her
T. S. Eliot of personal difficulty for Eliot—his marriage was failing, and both he and Vivienne were suffering from nervous disorders. The poem is often read as a representation of the disillusionment of the post-war generation. Before the poem's publication as a book in December 1922, Eliot distanced himself from its vision of despair. On 15 November 1922, he wrote to Richard Aldington, saying, "As for "The Waste Land", that is a thing of the past so far as I am concerned and I am now feeling toward a new form and style." The poem is known for its obscure nature—its slippage between