William Prufrock Company Trade Card (Origin of the Name of T. S. Eliot's First Published Manuscript)

St. Louis: Wm. Prufrock, Wholesale Manufacturer, 1880. Very good. Trade card, n. d. (ca 1880); 3 x4 1/2; chromolitographed recto with text in black; blank verso; light-age-toning to margins; a few small spots to verso; in very good condition.William Prufrock, a German-American enterpreneur, established William Prufrock Furniture Company in 1868. After William's death, his son Harry Purfrock took over the business and successfully made the company a household name by writing his own ads with remarkable editorials, which took full-pages in the local St. Louis (truncated) papers. The main character of T. S. Elliot's "Prufrock and Other Observations" and more specifically of the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” followed the narrator’s stream-of-consciousness in his suffering through the alienation of early-20th century urban life. Allegedly, asked later, Elliot "himself could not remember, if he had based “The Love Song” on actual people, but figured that he must have..." (Inventory #: 003157)