The release in 2009 of the first two volumes of T.S. Eliot's letters, and the year before of the final volume of Katherine Mansfield's, raises questions about the relationship between these two and their spouses, Vivien Haigh-Wood and John Middleton Murry.[*] Why was Eliot distrustful, and even apprehensive, of Mansfield? What was Murry's relationship with Vivien - and indeed with Eliot himself? Why were Vivien's feelings about Murry so tortured - and was Mansfield jealous of her?

LRB 3 March 2011 | PDF Download