ELIOT (T.S.)
Collected Poems 1909-1935, FIRST EDITION, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY TO GEOFFREY AND 'POLLY' TANDY, inscribed on front free endpaper 'to G. & Polly Tandy/ Compts. of Possum 31.iii.36', slight spotting mainly only to endpapers, publisher's blue cloth (extremities rubbed, slight staining at edges and foot of spine), dust-jacket (top edges frayed, slight stain and one short tear to upper cover, spine faded) [Gallup A32a], 8vo, Faber and Faber, 1936
Footnotes:
'COMPTS. OF POSSUM' - INSCRIBED TO FELLOW CAT-LOVERS GEOFFREY AND DORIS TANDY THREE DAYS BEFORE PUBLICATION.

Geoffrey Tandy (1900–1969) was a writer, broadcaster and scientist who worked at the Natural History Museum, and he struck up a close friendship with Eliot in the early 1930s. The poet was soon a frequent visitor to the Tandy home, and befriended Tandy's wife, Doris – known as Polly. He also became godparent to their daughter, Alison.

Eliot began writing poems about cats in around 1934, as presents for Alison Tandy and his other godchildren. Some were drafted in verse-form letters to the Tandys, and they feature the first appearance of characters such as Rumpleteazer and Old Deuteronomy. Eliot would address Polly affectionately as 'Pollytandy' or 'Pollitandy', signing himself 'Old Possum', 'Tom Possum', 'TP' or, as here, 'Possum'. In 1937 Geoffrey Tandy was the first to broadcast the poems, and on Christmas Day he read a version of 'Practical Cats' on the BBC.

The Collected Poems were published on 2 April 1936, and include the first appearance of 'Burnt Norton', thus inaugurating the 'Four Quartets' sequence.
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