T. S. Eliot is regarded as the most important poet-critic of modern times, the twentieth century's 'Man of Letters' whose reputation was forged not only on the strength of his verse, but on the enduring influence of his critical writings.

The Collected Prose presents those works that Eliot allowed to reach print in the order of their final revision or printing. Publishing across four volumes, the series aims to provide an authoritative and clean-text record of Eliot's approved texts and their revisions, beginning with his formative observations, written while he was at high school, and concluding in his final major opus, To Criticize the Critic, published in the months after his death.

This fourth and final volume from 1951-1966, covers a period of concluding productivity in Eliot's writing. Although his poetry was all but complete, his theatrical and critical work flourished through a decade that included such books as Poetry and Drama (1951), The Frontiers of Criticism (1956) and On Poetry and Poets (1957).