Murder in the Cathedral.

ELIOT, T.S.

$35.00

Item Number: 145271

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936.

First edition, early printing of Eliot’s dramatization of the murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Octavo, original boards. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket.

First performed in 1935, T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral during the reign of Henry II in 1170. Eliot drew heavily on the writing of Edward Grim, a clerk who was an eyewitness to the event. The play, dealing with an individual's opposition to authority, was written at the time of rising fascism in Central Europe.