Portrait of T. S. Eliot

Birthday profile

T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot, English poet, playwright, critic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1965)

Born
September 26, 1888
Died
January 4, 1965
Zodiac sign
Libra
Birth year
1888

About T. S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright. He was a leading figure of modernist poetry in the English language where he altered the art through his use of pessimistic language, writing style, and verse structure. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, he is considered one of the greatest poets of the English language. He is also noted for his critical essays, which often re-evaluated long-held cultural beliefs. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25 and went on to settle, work, and marry there. He became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39 and renounced his American citizenship. Eliot first attracted widespread attention for "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), which, at the time of its publication, was considered outlandish. It was followed by The Waste Land (1922), "The Hollow Men" (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1943). He wrote seven plays, including Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry".

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when T. S. Eliot was born

T. S. Eliot was born in 1888. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineGreat Blizzard of 1888 paralyzes US East Coast
  • Technology milestoneKodak box camera — "You press the button, we do the rest"
  • Defining fadKodak camera craze
  • World population~1.48B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderGrover Cleveland
  • U.S. population57.6M

1888 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in T. S. Eliot's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18882026
Population57.6M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.