T. S. Eliot

After studying philosophy at Harvard with Bertrand Russell and learning from literary great Ezra Pound in London, Missouri-born writer T.S. Eliot became enamored of England and is even thought to have married his first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, in part, to gain residency. Eliot supported himself by teaching and working as a banker in England during the early part of his writing career, eventually joining a firm that published important poets of the day. Eliot gained acclaim for his own writing as well, including the poems The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, and The Hollow, and the play Murder in the Cathedral. Today, Eliot is considered one of the most influential poets of the 20th century.