The Waste Land

First published in 1922, this five-part poem moves through a drought-struck modern landscape of London streets, drawing-rooms, and riverbanks, speaking in broken voices rather than a single narrator. A speaker recalls a Bavarian childhood and a fortune-teller's cards; a neurotic couple fail to talk; a typist and a clerk meet after work; Phlebas the Phoenician drowns. Tiresias watches the city's sexual and spiritual exhaustion. Fragments of the Fisher King, the Grail, Augustine, Buddha, and the Upanishads interrupt the English present. Thunder finally speaks Sanskrit commands to give, sympathize, and control, and a repeated peace formula closes the poem without restoring a continuous story.

Bound in vellum by Ludlow Bookbinders with spine blocked in 22-carat gold, violet cloth sides printed in grey with a text design by Tom Phillips. Dark blue Colorplan Damask Amethyst endpapers. Gilded page top edge with natural deckle retained on fore and bottom edges. Light brown cloth-covered clamshell box lined with soft, napped fabric in purple and blind-blocked on front and blocked with brown foil on spine.