Miller challenges long-held assumptions about Eliot's poetry and his personal experience. Eliot himself always maintained that his poems should not be read personally, but Miller convincingly combines a reading of the early work-from his first poems in 1902 through 1922. Ultimately, Miller demonstrates that Eliot's poetry is filled with reflections of his personal experiences, his relationships with family, friends, and wives, his sexuality, his intellectual and social development, his influences.