World Broke in Two

A revelatory narrative of the intersecting lives and works of revered authors Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster and D. H. Lawrence during 1922, the birth year of modernism The World Broke in Two tells the fascinating story of the intellectual and personal journeys four legendary writers, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, and D. H. Lawrence, make over the course of one pivotal year. As 1922 begins, all four are literally at a loss for words, confronting an uncertain creative future despite success in the past. The literary ground is shifting, as Ulysses is published in February and Proust's In Search of Lost Time begins to be published in England in the autumn. Yet, dismal as their prospects seemed in January, by the end of the year Woolf has started Mrs. Dalloway, Forster has, for the first time in nearly a decade, returned to work on the novel that will become A Passage to India, Lawrence has written Kangaroo, his unjustly neglected and most autobiographical novel, and Eliot has finished-and published to acclaim-"The Waste Land." As Willa Cather put it, "The world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts," and what these writers were struggling with that year was in fact the invention of modernism. Based on original research, Bill Goldstein's The World Broke in Two captures both the literary breakthroughs and the intense personal dramas of these beloved writers as they strive for greatness.

Bill Goldstein, the founding editor of the books site of The New York Times on the Web, reviews books and interviews authors for NBC's "Weekend Today in New York." He is also curator of public programs at Roosevelt House, the public policy institute of New York's Hunter College. He received a PH.D in English from City University of New York Graduate Center in 2010, and is the recipient of writing fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, Ucross and elsewhere.

Bill is the author of The World Broke In Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster and the Year That Changed Literature.

CONTENTS Introduction 1 1: Virginia Woolf Nears Forty 11 2: Eliot in January 30 3: Edward Morgan Forster 56 4: "Somewhere Away by Myself" 77 5: "The Greatest Waste Now Going On in Letters" 94 6: "Without a Novel & With No Power to Write One" 113 7: "The Usual Fabulous Zest" 123 8: "English in the Teeth of All the World" 141 9: "Do Not Forget Your Ever Friend" 159 10: "Eliot Dined Last Sunday & Read His Poem" 173 11: Women in Love in Court 187 12: The Waste Land in New York 207 13: "I Like Being with My Dead" 221 14: A September Weekend with the Woolves 231 15: David and Frieda Arrive in Taos 249 16: "Mrs Dalloway Has Branched into a Book" 265 17: "What More Is Necessary to a Great Poem?" 278 Epilogue 287 Notes 295 Bibliographic Note 333 Acknowledgments 335 Index 341