Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American-born English poet and dramatist. He was one of the most influential poets in the 20th Century. He was also an interesting playwright, editor and publisher. Eliot wrote so many great poems and dramas in his lifetime. He won many awards and honors, including the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in Missouri. He lived in St. Louis for 18 years. Then, he attended Harvard University in Boston. In 1910, he left the United States to study philosophy at the Sorbonne University in Paris.

After spending a year in Paris, he returned to Harvard to get a doctorate in philosophy. He returned to Europe and settled in England in 1914. The following year, he married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and began working in London.

Eliot held many different kinds of jobs throughout his lifetime: school master, bank clerk, free-lance writer, assistant editor (of the Egoist), editor (of The Criterion), publisher and even professor of poetry at Harvard.

In London, Eliot met and became friends with many popular writers of the time. They had a lot of influence on him. Around the time he was working at the bank, he also started editing the Egoist (1917?1919). Later, he published his own literary journal Criterion and it became one of the most praised publications of the genre.

Eliot continued to write many poems and essays. His first book of poems Prufrock and Other Observations was published in 1917. The book immediately established him as a leading poet of the avant-garde.

In 1922, he published The Waste Land and his reputation began to grow. Today, it is considered to be the single most influential poetic work of the 20th Century. By 1930 and for the next 30 years, he was the most respected poet in the English-speaking world.

Eliot was also an important playwright. He wrote many plays including, Murder in the Cathedral (1935); The Family Reunion (1939); The Cocktail Party (1950); The Confidential Clerk (1954); and The Elder Statesman (1959).

He became a British citizen in 1927. In 1948, T. S. Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature for his outstanding, pioneering contribution to modern poetry. The great poet died in London on January 4, 1965.