Vivien haigh wood biography channel

Vivien(ne) Eliot, née Haigh-Wood (1888–1947): T. S. Eliot’s first wife. Born in Bury, Lancashire, on 28 May 1888, ‘Vivy’ was brought up from the age of three in Hampstead.

After meeting TSE in company with Scofield Thayer in Oxford early in 1915, she and TSE hastened to be married just a few weeks later, on 26 June 1915. (TSE, who was lodging at 35 Greek Street, London, was recorded in the marriage certificate as ‘of no occupation’.) She developed close friendships with Mary Hutchinson, Ottoline Morrell and others in TSE’s circle.

Despite chronic personal and medical difficulties, they remained together until 1933, when TSE resolved to separate from her following his academic year in America.

Vivien haigh wood biography channel 7

She was never to be reconciled to the separation, became increasingly ill, and in 1938 was confined to a psychiatric hospital, where she died (of ‘syncope’ and ‘cardiovascular degeneration’) on 22 January 1947. She is the dedicatee of Ash-Wednesday (1930).

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