Robert Crawford's seventh collection of poems, Testament, was published by Cape in 2014. His first book was on T. S. Eliot, and his other prose books include The Modern Poet (2001) and an award-winning biography of Robert Burns, The Bard (Cape, 2009). He is Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Young Eliot marks both a milestone and a turning point... [It] is judicious, sympathetic, meticulous... The story it tells of a great poet's early life is enthralling. -- Robert McCrum Observer This is an exemplary book... I look forward to the second volume eagerly. -- Stuart Kelly Scotsman A masterful biography of the canonical modernist... Drawing on sources not available to previous biographers, the author fashions an authoritative, nuanced portrait... Although Crawford modestly claims that his biography is neither official nor definitive, it is unlikely to be surpassed. Kirkus Crawford's superb biography, of which this is the first of two volumes, must now be regarded as the standard work. It does not diminish or tarnish Eliot's reputation. On the contrary, it makes one want to return to the poems and read them again and again. -- Alan Taylor Herald Crawford's case is sensitive and compelling, and his account - especially of Eliot's childhood and student years - is more richly detailed than any previous biographer's... A powerful and enlightening book. -- John Carey Sunday Times