style="overflow: hidden; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; border: medium none;">The first volume of TS Eliot’s letters was published in 1988 and issued in significantly expanded form in 2009. What did it tell us about the author of The Waste Land? Mainly that he was forever caught up in the most humdrum matters. His correspondence was businesslike, pious and dignified, with just an occasional hint of frivolity. It was also minutely concerned with his finances.