Writing Great Tom: T. S. Eliot and the Keepers of the Flame

Writing Great Tom is the account of a biographer's journey that began with a letter from a New York editor asking him to write a biography of T. S. Eliot. T. S. Matthews referred to the journey as "living a detective story." He began keeping this backup account when he thought it might be impossible to write the biography. He comforted himself with the idea of publishing instead "The Story of a Book." This story is composed of reflections, interview notes, dozens of letters to and from people including Robert Lowell, Edmund Wilson, and Valerie (Mrs. T. S.) Eliot, and correspondence with libraries and lawyers. Matthews's extensive contacts on both sides of the Atlantic enabled him to interview a wide range of people important in Eliot's life. He was the first to explore the role of two women important in Eliot's life and evident in his poetry: his first wife, Vivien Haigh-Wood and his confidante of many decades, Emily Hale. Fortunately, and in spite of what he called the "Eliot Establishment," Matthews managed to complete the first biography of T. S. Eliot It was published in the US and the UK as Great Tom: Notes Towards the Definition of T. S. Eliot. Matthews's backup account was filed away at Princeton University as part of the archives from his extensive writing career. The folder was discovered by Sara Fitzgerald in 2021, just over a year after Princeton opened the collection of more than 1,100 long-sequestered letters from T. S. Eliot to Emily Hale. More than fifty years on, his unfinished draft provides a lively, personal perspective on the challenges of contemporary biography.