ELIOT, T.S. Knowledge and Experience in the philosophy of F.H. Bradley. London: Faber and Faber. 1964.
8vo. Original blue cloth, spine printed in gilt and black, with unclipped dust jacket; pp. 216; very light wear to extremities of jacket, otherwise a very crisp, fine copy.
First edition of T.S. Eliot's unpresented doctoral thesis at Harvard on the British philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley (1846-1924).
Eliot completed his doctoral dissertation at Harvard in 1916, following years of research both there and at Oxford under the supervision of Bradley's disciple Harold Joachim. While his thesis received praise from Josiah Royce, then head of Harvard’s Department of Philosophy, Eliot never returned to defend it in the viva voce examination.
Eliot's admiration for Bradley became publicly evident in the notes to The Waste Land, where he quoted the philosopher. The dissertation was eventually published in 1964, with Eliot describing it in the preface as "only a curiosity of biographical interest". Nevertheless, the work has since been acknowledged as a significant contribution to the study of the idealist philosopher.
Gallup A75.
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