4 volumes, 8vo. (Some light spotting and rust-stains from staples to "East Coker" and "Burnt Norton.") Original printed wrappers ("East Coker" and "Burnt Norton" with some soiling, some fading to the edges of "The Dry Salvages", a few short tears or creases); folding case. Provenance: A few signatures or annotations in pencil or ink on first blanks). 

FIRST EDITIONS OF THE FIRST SEPARATE APPEARANCES of the poems that were later collected as Four Quartets. Eliot first published "Burnt Norton" in a collection of his early works in 1933. The poem, a meditation on the nature of time and its relation to eternity, was then used as the model for "East Coker," "The Dry Salvages," and "Little Gidding," which he wrote during World War II and the air-raids in Great Britain. The poems each stand as a complete, self-subsistent work, but were published for the first time as a series by Faber and Faber.  They were not collected into book form until Eliot's New York publisher printed them together in 1943 (see next lot). "This work made a deep impression on the reading public, and even those who were unable to accept the poems' Christian beliefs recognized the intellectual integrity with which Eliot pursued his high theme, the originality of the form he had devised, and the technical mastery of his verse" (Britannica). Gallup A36c, A37, A39 & A42.