The period of T. S. Eliot’s life between the ages of forty-one and forty-five was a time of great inner disturbance, including the permanent separation from his wife Vivien. And yet these difficult years also witnessed a steady widening and deepening of his critical interests, in essays that represent the crucible of Eliot’s mature literary, cultural, political, and theological thought.Among the highlights of work included in this volume are two books of collected lecture series, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism and John Dryden: The Poet, The Dramatist, The Critic; two pamphlets, Thoughts after Lambeth and Charles Whibley; and substantial essays on seventeenth-century drama, “Cyril Tourneur,” “Thomas Heywood,” and “John Ford” that originally appeared as leading articles in the Times Literary Supplement. Also included are a dozen BBC broadcasts, restoring material cut from the original typescripts, and more than fifty miscellaneous essays, including previously uncollected Criterion editorials, prefaces, letters, and reviews.Edited by Jason Harding and Ronald Schuchard