Erica Wagner Interviewed by Frederick Studemann

Writer and journalist Erica Wagner talks about her new book that charts the friendship between Mary Trevelyan and T S Eliot.

Eliot and Trevelyan enjoyed a close and cosy friendship, a mixture of day trips, churchgoing, love of music and simple suppers at home (with ‘Tom’ doing the cooking). Trevelyan, an intrepid traveller and educationalist, harboured hopes that their friendship might lead to something bigger. Events however would take a different course, and the story of their friendship, a ‘sort of love story’, would remain untold. Drawing on Trevelyan’s rich legacy of diaries, letters and pictures, Wagner has recreated the tale of a remarkable, hidden relationship that was full of joy, also riddled with misunderstandings and betrayal.

Wagner writes for the New Statesman and Harper’s Bazaar and is also author of books about Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and Alan Garner. She has been a judge on many literary prizes including the Booker. Here she talks to FT literary editor Frederick Studemann. 

FT Weekend at the Bodleian