The fountain pen, which was believed to have been given to TS Eliot as a schoolboy by his mother, was used for the first time at the Royal Society of Literature when critic and novelist James Wood signed the roll so joining the society.
One would only recognise the pen as belonging to the great poet by the tiny engraving TSE around the gold band on the cap. The pen was left to the society by Eliot's widow Valerie.
in it's possession the society also has Charles Dicken's quill, and Lord Byron's pen.
The Royal Society of Literature, now based at Somerset House in London, was founded in 1820 by a bishop, Thomas Burgess, under the patronage of George IV, and first met in the back room of Hatchard's bookshop on Piccadilly. Fellows have included Thomas Hardy, Henry James, WB Yeats and Rudyard Kipling.