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Thomas Stearns Eliot was the youngest of 7 children, born to Henry Ware Eliot and Charlette Champe in St Louis, Missouri. The Eliot family was prosperous, his father Henry being president of the Hydraulic Brick company. As a young man Eliot attended Harvard where his ambitions of a poet came to light. It was while he was in Paris and had befriended a fellow Lodger Jean Verdant who died in the battle of Dardenelles, he wrote one of his most famous poems The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock which he dedicated to his dead friend.

In 1914 Eliot moved to England and studied at Oxford, it was here he was introduced to his wife Vivien, which caused a rift between Eliot and his parents. Settling down in England Eliot had impressed fellow Poet Ezri Pound with his work and the two became friends and associates, Pound encouraged Eliot to get his poetry published. Eliot supported himself and his wife by working in the foreign section of Lloyds bank, and he mixed with many of the famous and talented poets, writers and artists of his day.

His personal life was touched with tragedy. His wife and he separated due to her mental ill health that led her being committed to a mental hospital. After her death he remarried again and found some contentment. The death of his father had also led to him having a nervous breakdown. Despite all these trials of his life his poetry flourished and he also became a playwright. Many of his dramas becoming succesful stageplays.

In 1948 Eliot won the Nobel prize in recognition of his literary work, and even today he is rated as one of the most influential Poets of the 20th Century.