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Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Henry Ware Eliot Papers, #12009-z, Rare Book Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Microfilm copy available.

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Processed by: Rare Book Literary and Historical Papers Staff

Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, August 2020

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Authors, American--20th century.
• Eliot, Henry Ware, 1879-1947.
• Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965.
• Harvey, Dorothy Dudley.
• Harvey, Henry B.

Henry Ware Eliot Jr. (1879-1949) was born in Saint Louis, Mo., the son of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Stearns Eliot. He and his only brother, Thomas Stearns Eliot, had for sisters. Henry Ware Eliot Jr. married Theresa Garrett, an artist and illusrator; they apparently had no children. It seems likely that he worked in advertising in the years after his graduation from Harvard University in 1902.

In 1932, under the pseudonym Mason Deal, Eliot published The Rumble Murders. The Eliots lived in New York int he 1930s, moving to Cambridge, Mass., about 1940. The interest in archeology that Eliot pursued later in life culminated with the publication in 1950 of Excavations in Mesopotamia and Western Iran: Sites of 4000-500 B.C., illustrated by his wife.

For many years, Eliot collected materials relating to his brother (he and his wife were both among T.S. Eliot's few intimate friends) and eventually established with this material the Eliot Collection at Harvard.

Henry Blodgett Harvey (d. afer April 1947), author and at one time a colleague of Henry Ware Eliot Jr. in advertising, married the poet and art critic Dorothy Dudley (d. 1962). The Harveys lived in Paris in the 1930s and New York in the 1940s. Harvey is identified in these papers as the co-author, with "Mr. Fulton," of They Couldn't Say No.

The collection consists of 27 letters, 1934-1935 and 1944-1947 and six miscellaneous items.

The letters from Henry Ware Eliot Jr. to Henry B. Harvey and his wife, Dorothy Dudley, are in two parts chronologically: 13 from 1934-1935 and 14 from 1944-1947. Most of the earlier letters were written from New York, and internal evidence suggests that they were addressed to the Harveys in Paris. By the time the latter group of letters was written, Eliot had moved to Cambridge, Mass., and the Harveys apparently to New York City.

Relatively substantial references to T.S. Eliot appear in letters of the following dates: 29 April 1935, 16 Septemberj 1944, 3 November 1934, and 5 Juy, 10 August, and 10 October 1946. Henry Ware Eliot Jr. discussed his brother's health and personality; comments T.S. Eliot made during a visit in 1946 and on other occasions about his own plays and poems and, very briefly, about Ezra Pountd; and Henry Ware Eliot Jr.'s own thoughts about his brother's work.

Henry Ware Eliot Jr.'s lettrs to the Harveys were ordinarily concerned with news of mutual friends, efforts to find publishers for their work and his own, thoughts about art criticism, the field of advertising, and health problems. The tone was informal and often humourous as might be expected in letters from an old friend keeping in touch by mail.

Almost all of these letters are typed, single-spaced, and cover about one full sheet. In addition, there are three post cards from Eliot to the Harveys, two carbon copies of letters from Eliot to others that were enclosed in letters to Harvey, and a letter from Theresa Garrett Eliot to the Harveys after Eliot's death, with a short newspapers obituary included.

• Microfilm (M-12009/1)