Page "On the Beach (novel)" Paragraph 3

The book also takes its name from the T. S. Eliot poem The Hollow Men, which includes the lines " In this last of meeting places // We grope together // And avoid speech // Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.

" Some editions of the novel, including the first 1957 edition ( and the 2009 edition ) by William Morrow and Company, NY, and the 1990 publication by Mandarin Paperbacks, include extracts from the poem, such as its concluding lines: