1940-42. First edition pamphlets. All in the publisher's stapled wraps. Housed in a custom-made drop-back box, gilt-stamped to cover. A uniform collection of the first impressions in very good condition throughout. Some minor bumping to edges and toning to wraps, scattered foxing to East Coker and neat dedication on front blank to Little Gidding. Four Quartets is a set of poems written by T. S. Eliot that were published individually over a six-year period. The first poem, Burnt Norton was written and published with a collection of his early works following the production of Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral. After a few years, Eliot composed the other three poems, East Coker, The Dry Salvages and Little Gidding, which were written during World War II and the air-raids on Great Britain. The poems were not collected until Eliot's New York publisher printed them together in 1943. They were first published as a series in Great Britain in 1944 towards the end of Eliot's poetic career.