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Eliot's letters to come under the hammer

LONDON: A series of tender and whimsical letters written by poet T.S. Eliot to a beloved godson will go on sale next month, auctioneer Bonhams announced on Thursday. The collection of 50 letters to Thomas Faber, a member of the Faber and Faber publishing family, is valued at between $45,000 and $54,000. They include poems and illustrations that formed the basis of Eliot's 1939 children's book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which was dedicated to Faber. It went on to inspire the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats.

One letter is a verse "Invitation to All Pollicle Dogs & Jellicle Cats To Come To The Birthday Of Thomas Faber," sent just before Faber's fourth birthday in 1931. It opens: "Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats!/Come from your Kennels & Houses & Flats..."

In another, Eliot described the delights of Chicago: "I lecture and the folk seem easily pleased. I give a `seminar,' nobody knows what about. I read poetry aloud. I go to cocktail parties, dinners and lunches. It is a terrible life..."

Bonhams' manuscripts consultant, Felix Pryor, said the letters were "very moving but enormous fun." "For anyone who loves T.S. Eliot's poetry the connection with the Faber family and its publishing house makes this collection even more exciting," he said.

Eliot, who died in 1965, worked for many years as an editor at Faber and Faber and eventually became a director of the firm. Thomas Faber became a Cambridge University physicist and died in 2004. The Eliot collection will be sold by the Faber family in London on September 20.

The sale also includes 84 other letters from Eliot and a signed first edition of "The Waste Land," inscribed to Tom Faber's father, Geoffrey, and valued at between $55,000 and $72,000. — AP

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