Eliot drank heavily at times, while his wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, used drugs to deal with chronic health conditions.
Eliot, who also wrote plays and essays, was a modernist who used language in new ways. Born in America, he left for England when he was 25 and never returned. His most famous poems included "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (renounced by critics upon initial publication but now considered a classic) and “Ash Wednesday.” His home life was fraught. Eliot drank heavily at times, while his wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, used drugs to deal with chronic health conditions. He died of emphysema. You can read T.S. Eliot’s work in the book The Waste Land and Other Poems, available from publisher Penguin Random House.