Valerie Eliot

Esmé Valerie Eliot, née Fletcher, was born in Leeds, England, on August 17, 1926. Better known as Valerie Eliot, she was educated at Queen Anne’s School. Her father, an insurance manager, loved books and passed his love of books to his daughter. She said she fell in love with her eventual husband T.S. Eliot’s work listening to John Gielgud’s recording of “Journey of the Magi” at the age of 14.

In 1949, Valerie Eliot took a secretarial course, and two years after Vivienne Eliot, Eliot’s first wife, died, Valerie interviewed for a secretary position at the publishing house Faber & Faber. In 1956, after several years of serving as Eliot’s secretary, the poet proposed to Valerie, and they married in 1957.

After Eliot died in 1965, Valerie guarded her husband’s legacy and privacy. When he was alive, he stated he didn’t want biographers inspecting his life. After Valerie became the steward of his estate, she declined requests from scholars and biographers. However, the most important project in her life was editing her husband’s letters. With the assistance of coeditors, she also edited a facsimile and transcript of The Waste Land containing the original notes from Ezra Pound and Vivienne Eliot. Valerie Eliot also approved a theatrical adaptation of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a book of children's poems that became the musical Cats. It brought a larger audience and wealth to her husband’s estate and enabled her to create a charitable trust.

Because of the substantial income from the musical, Valerie was able to make a donation to the London Library, of which her husband had been president, and to Newnham College, Cambridge. She also donated £15,000 for the annual T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry and provided scholarships for young musicians and actors attending the T.S. Eliot International Summer School. 

Valerie Eliot preserved T.S. Eliot’s literary legacy until her death in 2012 at the age of 86. She was the recipient of several honorary degrees from American and British universities.