“Where else but Harvard would you find, in one room, the grandson of Matisse, the grandson of Joyce, and the great-great-grandson of God?”

John Finley’s offhand remark about an Eliot House suite to a New York Times reporter captured the magic of the House during his mastership. John H. Finley, Jr. (1904-1995) was described as “the living embodiment of Harvard” and under his long tenure the Eliot House dormitory became known as “more Harvard than Harvard itself.”

During the Second World War, Finley reshaped American education to unify an increasingly diverse country and to inoculate against the rise of domestic authoritarianism. But his greatest legacy might be as house master, particularly his mentorship of his residents and students, many of whom would become defining names in American culture, politics, and business.

A roll call of these residents would be improbable in a work of fiction. Frank O’Hara and Edward Gorey were famed for their parties. Several founding members of The Paris Review, including Donald Hall and George Plimpton met at Eliot. At the spring formals, performers included Ella Fitzgerald and Tom Lehrer (not together). In the dining hall, one might find T.S. Eliot, William S. Burroughs, and Malcolm X (also not together). One resident, Theodore Kaczynski, was described as “the most intellectual of America’s serial killers.” And another, the poet Gregory Corso, wasn’t even enrolled at Harvard but lived in a makeshift tent in the living room of Bobby Sedgwick’s suite.

The Master of Eliot House tells the story of Finley’s life and times.

Co-written by Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr., a former editor of The Paris Review and resident of Eliot House, and Constantine Archimedes Valhouli, the book draws from archival materials and extensive interviews to bring alive the world of mid-century Harvard, and to highlight how the changes which began in the Second World War continue to shape our world today.