"Tremendously exciting. Immensely readable; deeply informative. It is a breakthrough. It will have a far-reaching effect in time in the history of 19th and 20th century European thought." (Joe Winter in Asian Age)

Sir Frank Kermode called it a milestone in Eliot criticism: "Guha has gone deeper into the French origins or sources of Eliot than any other commentator I have encountered." (The Sunday Times, London) The Times Higher Education Supplement called it "an epiphany." According to John Bodley, Director, Eliot Estates, "It will cause a rumpus sooner or later."

This amazing book closely analyses Eliot's fascinating use of various French poetic discourses to reconstruct English poetry of the twentienth century. Was Eliot's, then, an exceptional case of literary kleptomania? Were his virtues forced upon him by his impudent crimes?