The Ariel Poems

A cherished part of his oeuvre, the ''Ariel Poems'' of T. S. Eliot were originally commissioned for a pamphlet series of the same name that first ran between 1927 and 1931. (''Nobody else seemed to want the title afterward,'' said Eliot of the series, ''so I kept it for myself.'') That pamphlet series inventively paired an unpublished poem by a leading writer of the day with new artwork from an eminent artist. Thomas Hardy, Siegfried Sassoon, Barnett Freedman and John Nash were among the contributors to the first set, which broadly carried a Christmas theme and which sold for one shilling. The publisher''s hope was that the pamphlets might double-up as greeting cards, and Eliot himself sent them as festive gifts to the writers on Faber''s poetry list. This handsome new publication brings together, for the first time in a single edition, the six poems that T. S. Eliot wrote for the series, and in so doing restores them to the company of the artworks that originally partnered them.