REFLECTIONS: Mr. Eliot

(10 of 10)

† Until it folded on the eve of World War II, The Criterion, though its circulation never exceeded 900, was one of the most distinguished literary magazines in the English-speaking world.*In its first issue (March 3, 1923). baffled, brash, bumptious TIME reported that The Waste Land was rumored to have been written as a hoax. *Alec Guinness, Irene Worth, Cathleen Nesbitt, Robert Flemyng, Ernest Clark and Grey Blake. *Not a badly lined pocket, as poets' pockets go. Friends estimate that Eliot makes about £4,000 ($11,200) a year, including some £2,500 of royalties from his books and plays. His income from The Cocktail Party in Manhattan is about $1,600 a week. *Eliot refuses to say what he meant by it. Literally, "loving numerous offspring."