The Tewkesbury Festival programme signed by T.S. Eliot dated 1935

ELIOT, T. S. The Tewkesbury Festival July 21st-27th, 1935. (signed) 
 
Tewkesbury, Festival Committee on behalf of the Council of the Friends of Tewkesbury Abbey, 1935.
 
4to (250 x 180 mm), 16 pp. Original stapled wrappers. Mild toning to edges with some creasing. Tear to right-hand edge affecting most leaves, moderately to pp. 2-3. Otherwise sound. Signed by T. S. Eliot in ink at the foot of p. 8 beneath the cast list for Samson Agonistes.
 
Festival programme for the 1935 Tewkesbury Abbey Festival, including performances of John Milton’s Samson Agonistes alongside productions of Noah’s Flood and Everyman, and readings by John Masefield. The festival formed part of the revival of religious drama associated with cathedral and abbey settings. Eliot’s signature appears on the page listing the cast for Samson Agonistes, a work whose title he had echoed in his own Sweeney Agonistes (1932). 
 
Eliot had just had published Murder in the Cathedral, for the Canterbury festival committee, and it seems he was doing the rounds as a guest at similar events like this one. It is most likely he was asked to sign the programme by a fellow guest or festival goer. A rare item to find signed by Eliot.