Stephen Hudson is the pen name of Sydney Schiff (1868-1944), an English novelist who received acclaim in the 1920s and 1930s from such writers as Thomas Mann and Somerset Maugham. Since that time, however, literary tastes have changed, and interest in Hudson's work has diminished. That Hudson's novels do not deserve such obscurity is the belief of Theophilus E. M. Boll, who here introduces one of the best of them, Richard, Myrtle and I, to present-day readers. Boll's biographical and critical sections contain, respectively, the first authentic account of Hudson's life, and the first comprehensive study of the development and the meaning of his art as novelist and short-story writer. The two­-part introduction adds a wholly new section to the history of the English novel in the twentieth century and to the history of literary relationships between the Continent and England. In telling the story of a marriage of minds and the literary consequences it produced, Boll places the form and content of Hudson's art against the background of his particular experiences. The novel Richard, Myrtle and I, which forms the second half of this volume, is clearly representative of Stephen Hudson's best work. It is largely autobiographical in its main theme: the evolution of Stephen Hudson as novelist. Newly edited by Violet Schiff, the Myrtle in the story, it is a blend of realism and allegory that tells how a strong creative impulse and encouragement from a sympathetic wife make it possible for a sensitive and perceptive man to become a creative artist. Appraising his own work, Stephen Hudson once remarked, "I have never had any desire to write for the sake of writing and I am devoid of ambition. I have accumulated a quantity of vital experience which remains in a state of flux. Continuously passing in and out of my consciousness it demands to be sorted out and synthesized. When the chaos becomes unbearable I start writing and go on until the congestion is relieved." Referring to this passage, Boll comments, "We ought not to misunderstand that modesty of his. It was based on a pride that aimed at perfection because nothing lower was worth aiming at. After the labor of creating was over, Hudson measured what he had done against what he judged to be supremely great; any lower standard meant a concession his pride would not make." It is in Richard, Myrtle and I that Stephen Hudson came closest, perhaps, to his unattainable goal.

T. S. Eliot's career as a successful stage dramatist gathers pace throughout the fascinating letters of this volume. Following his early experimentation with the dark comedy Sweeney Agonistes (1932), Eliot is invited to write the words of an ambitious scenario sketched out by the producer-director E. Martin Browne (who was to direct all of Eliot's plays) for a grand pageant called The Rock (1934). The ensuing applause leads to a commission from the Bishop of Chichester to write a play for the Canterbury Festival, resulting in the quasi-liturgical masterpiece of dramatic writing, Murder in the Cathedral (1935). A huge commercial success, it remains in repertoire after eighty years.Even while absorbed in time-consuming theatre work, Eliot remains untiring in promoting the writers on Faber's ever broadening lists - George Barker, Marianne Moore and Louis MacNeice among them. In addition, Eliot works hard for the Christian Church he has espoused in recent years, serving on committees for the Church Union and the Church Literature Association, and creating at Faber & Faber a book list that embraces works on church history, theology and liturgy. Having separated from his wife Vivien in 1933, he is anxious to avoid running into her; but she refuses to comprehend that her husband has chosen to leave her and stalks him across literary society, leading to his place of work at the offices of Faber & Faber. The correspondence draws in detail upon Vivien's letters and diaries to provide a picture of her mental state and way of life - and to help the reader to appreciate her thoughts and feelings.

Eliot is called upon to become the completely public man. He gives talks, lectures, readings and broadcasts, and even school prize-day addresses. As editor and publisher, his work is unrelenting, commissioning works ranging from Michael Roberts's The Modern Mind to Elizabeth Bowen's anthology The Faber Book of Modern Stories. Other letters reveal Eliot's delight in close friends such as John Hayward, Virginia Woolf and Polly Tandy, and his colleagues Geoffrey Faber and Frank Morley, as well as his growing troupe of godchildren - to whom he despatches many of the verses that will ultimately be gathered up in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939). The volume covers his separation from first wife Vivien, and tells the full story of the decision taken by her brother, following the best available medical advice, to commit her to an asylum - after she had been found wandering in the streets of London. All the while these numerous strands of correspondence are being played out, Eliot struggles to find the time to compose his second play, The Family Reunion (1939), which is finally completed in 1938.