Since the publication of his first book of verse, Pmfrock and Other Observations in 1917 and The Waste Land in 1922, Eliot has been regarded as an important, if not crucial, figure in twentieth-century literature. When Murder in the Cathedral premiered on June 15, 1935, Eliot found yet another of his works greeted with enthusiastic and glowing reviews. Writing in the London Mercury in July of that year, poet Edwin Muir called it a "unified work, and one of great beauty." The Christian Century's Edward Shillito praised the play's force, stating (in the October 2, 1935 issue), "Not since [George Bernard Shaw's] Saint Joan has there been any play on the English stage in which such tremendous issues as this have been treated with such mastery of thought, as well as dramatic power/' Echoing the thoughts of many other critics, the American poet Mark Van Doren, in the October 9, 1935 issue of...