--- title: Remembering Valerie Eliot, T.S. Eliot's Devoted Widow description: She was born on Aug. 17, 1926. Her love of one of the great writer began with hearing a recording at the impressionable age of 14. canonical: https://time.com/4447078/valerie-eliot-90th-birthday/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-17T12:30:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:53:50.654Z article:section: History og:title: Remembering Valerie Eliot, T.S. Eliot's Devoted Widow og:description: She was born on Aug. 17, 1926 og:url: https://time.com/4447078/valerie-eliot-90th-birthday/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc249b4be628de664/6988a1ee5f570f18a7b2227c/valerie-eliot.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4798 og:image:height: 2699 og:image:alt: T. S. And Valerie Eliot og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Remembering Valerie Eliot, T.S. Eliot's Devoted Widow twitter:description: She was born on Aug. 17, 1926 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc249b4be628de664/6988a1ee5f570f18a7b2227c/valerie-eliot.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Surprising Story of T.S. Eliot's Second Wife Valerie > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Aug 17, 2016 12:30 PM UTC  American-born British poet, playwright and essayist, T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965), with his second wife, Valerie Eliot (1926 - 2012), Aug. 16, 1958. American-born British poet, playwright and essayist, T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965), with his second wife, Valerie Eliot (1926 - 2012), Aug. 16, 1958.Express—Getty Images by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Aug 17, 2016 12:30 PM UTC T.S. Eliot’s youthful marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood is the stuff of legend—married in their 20s, their union was so bleak it was thought to have heavily influenced Eliot’s depressing masterpiece, _The Waste Land_. But his marriage late in life to the much-younger Valerie Fletcher was the complete opposite: calm and sustaining to the aging poet. [Valerie Eliot ](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/arts/valerie-eliot-wife-and-editor-of-ts-eliot-dies-at-86.html)met her future husband in 1949, two years after Eliot’s long-estranged first wife died in a sanatorium. She had come to work as a secretary at his publishing house, Faber and Faber, but her interest was more than professional. She had loved Eliot’s work since first hearing a recording of “Journey of the Magi” at age 14, and by the time she met him, she said years later, “I felt I knew him.” (A recording of Eliot reading the poem can be heard [here](http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/journey-magi).) When she heard he was seeking a secretary, she eagerly sought out the job. Still, their love affair was slow to bloom. Eliot was an intensely private man, and Valerie was happy to keep their courtship and eventual engagement a secret from friends and colleagues. When she came to the office one day with a “socking great emerald” engagement ring, as [one colleague](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/may/24/ts-eliot-valerie-fletcher-scrapbooks) later put it, she declined to say who had given it to her. The couple finally married in 1957 in a quiet ceremony kept secret from the press and even their friends. “I have so much to tell you on Monday so prepare to do no work!” Valerie wrote to her colleagues afterwards. “A lovely honeymoon apart from TSE catching flu, and cracking a tooth.” [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) [Valerie](http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/13/valerie-eliot/) was 30; Thomas was 68\. They settled into a quiet union, both content to spend most of their days as homebodies. “We used to stay at home and drink Drambuie and eat cheese and play Scrabble,” Valerie would later say in an interview. “He loved to win at cards, and I always made a point of losing by the time we went to bed.” They would sometimes venture to theater outings and occasional trips to warmer climes for Thomas’s health. “He obviously needed to have a happy marriage,” she said. “He wouldn’t die until he’d had it. There was a little boy in him that had never been released.” All signs from Thomas’s side indicate just as warm feelings toward his wife. In a poem called “A Dedication to My Wife,” he wrote of “lovers whose bodies smell of each other / Who think the same thoughts without need of speech / And babble the same speech without need of meaning.” T.S. Eliot died in 1965, after which Valerie maintained firm custody of his estate, rarely granting scholars’ requests and doing her best to fulfill her husband’s wish that there be no authorized biography. She did permit one special adaptation of her husband’s book _Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats_: the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical _Cats,_ a lucrative choice for both the producers and the Eliot estate. Valerie used a generous portion of the estate’s money for charitable purposes. She also made a name for herself editing a highly respected facsimile edition of _The Waste Land_ and several volumes of Thomas’s collected letters. [Valerie](https://www.yahoo.com/news/t-eliots-widow-valerie-eliot-dies-86-163116521.html?ref=gs) died at age 86 in 2012; on Wednesday, she would have been 90\. Though her love of one of the 20th century’s great writers began with hearing that recording at the impressionable age of 14—when she could hardly have dreamed of meeting him, let alone marrying him—it ended after a life devoted to his happiness and his enduring legacy. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4447078/valerie-eliot-90th-birthday/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4447078/valerie-eliot-90th-birthday/"},"headline":"The Surprising Story of T.S. 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