The Imperfect Life of T. S. Eliot

The most valuable single book yet published about Eliot * Sunday Times *
Subtle and authoritative -- Aida Edamariam * Guardian *
A nuanced, discerning account of a life famously flawed in its search for perfection * New Yorker *
Daring, strong and psychologically brilliant -- Cynthia Ozick * New Yorker *
An intellectually demanding, sophisticated and distinguished book . . . Probing and extremely thoughtful * New York Times *
With this hugely impressive study...Lyndall Gordon blew the door of T.S. Eliot's domesticity wide open...[H]er willingness to allow the poetry to go on working its magic while she stares, unflinching, into the face of the man who wrote it is an awesome achievement -- Arminta Wallace * Irish Times *
What would [Eliot] have made of a woman with such profound insight and knowledge as Lyndall Gordon writing his biography, stripping him of his cloak of mysteriousness, and offering credible interpretations of his work? * Observer *
A subtle portrait of Eliot as a Jamesian hero torn between memory and desire, worldly happiness and a more rarefied world of the spirit -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times *
A fascinating portrait * The Times *
Balancing sympathy and judgement...Lyndall Gordon plumbs the gap separating Eliot's vision of an otherworldly Absolute from his decidedly terrestrial social views...No mere abridgement or revision of Lyndall Gordon's earlier two-volume biography, this work offers a wealth of new material and fresh insights * Booklist *
This complex spiritual and artistic history is reconstructed with tact, diligence, and subtlety * Boston Globe *
Gordon is the rare modern day biographer who can resist the temptation to make clay feet into a synecdoche for a man. "I propose to look flaws in the face without seeing flaws alone," she says, and she succeeds brilliantly * Cleveland Plain Dealer *
Gordon manages to be definitive but not dogmatic, sympathetic without taking sides, doorstop thick without seeming too long. It horrifies and fascinates like re-runs of a train wreck * Baltimore Sun *
Among the very best of this century's biographers * Buffalo News *
A model of its kind: authoritative, meticulously documented, sensitive alike to poetic and spiritual nuances * Times Educational Supplement *
The most valuable single book yet published about Eliot * Sunday Times *
A nuanced, discerning account of a life famously flawed in its search for perfection * New Yorker *
An intellectually demanding, sophisticated and distinguished book . . . Probing and extremely thoughtful * New York Times *