Librarian Note: Also available as an Alternate Cover Edition.

“And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you
I will show you fear in a handful of dust”

When The Waste Land was published in 1922, initial reaction to the poem was decidedly negative. Critics attacked the poem's "kaleidoscopic" design, and nearly everyone disagreed furiously about its meaning. The poem was even rumored to a hoax. Eventually, though, The Waste Land went on to become what many regard as the most influential poem written in English in the twentieth century.

"In ten years' time," wrote Edmund Wilson in Axel's Castle (1931), "Elliot has left upon English poetry a mark more unmistakable than that of any other poet writing in English." In 1948, T.S. Eliot was awarded the Nobel Price "for his work as a trail-blazing pioneer of modern poetry."

In addition to the title poem, this selection includes "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "Geronition," "Ash-Wednesday," and other poems from Eliot's early and middle work.

Includes:
- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
- Preludes
- Gerontion
- Sweeney Among the Nightingales
- The Waste Land:
I. The Burial of the Dead
II. A Game of Chess
III. The Fire Sermon
IV. Death by Water
V. What the Thunder Said
Notes on 'The Waste Land'
- Ash-Wednesday
-J ourney of the Magi
- Marina
- Landscapes:
I. New Hampshire
II. Virginia
III. USK
- Two Choruses from 'The Rock'