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Have a listen to ‘Les Rencontres’, the splendid literary podcast I host for CHANEL. Interviews with terrific debut women authors — Sheena Patel, Selby Wynn Schwartz, Louise Kennedy, Patricia Lockwood, many more!

My new book, Mary and Mr Eliot: A Sort of Love Story, is out now in paperback.

‘This pitch-perfect portrait of the singular friendship between two remarkable people is an absolute joy.’ — Sarah Waters

In 1938 T.S. Eliot struck up a friendship with Mary Trevelyan, a passionately curious woman and intrepid traveller. Their relationship was cosy and domestic — characterised by churchgoing, record-playing, day trips with Mary at the wheel or Eliot in his rolled shirt-sleeves cooking up sausages for dinner. Over the years, Mary came to believe that their friendship might lead to something more . . . but their journey together did not end as she would have hoped.

Trevelyan left a unique document — of diaries, letters and pictures – charting their twenty-year-long relationship in her vivid prose. Erica Wagner has brought this untold story together for the first time. Mary and Mr Eliot is a revelatory tale of joy, misunderstanding and betrayal that feels utterly modern and deeply human.

‘Heartbreaking and wonderfully told.’ Susan Hill, Spectator Books of the Year

‘Compelling … compulsive.’ Margaret Drabble, New Statesman

‘Erica Wagner shows herself to be a forensically astute reader of the memoir and letters that Trevelyan left behind.’ Kathryn Hughes, Sunday Times

‘Mary & Mr Eliot is a testament to Trevelyan … it is impossible to read the book and not be struck by her energy, determination and strength.’ Spectator

‘Sympathetic and illuminating.’ Country Life