modern Europe". Eliot's conversion and his adherence to Anglo-Catholicism informed and influenced his later poetry. Critical reviews of Eliot's poems shifted as well, with some critics asserting that Eliot's work suffered with the addition of Christian themes. One critic, Morton D. Zabel said that this "deprived his art of its once incomparable distinction in style and tone". Other critics thought Eliot's exploration of Christian themes was a positive development in his poetry, including Gordon Symes, who recognised it as "an evaluation of old age, an elucidation of its special grace, and an appreciation of its special function in the progress of the soul". In 1927, Eliot was asked by his employer, Geoffrey Faber, one of the partners in Faber & Gwyer, to write one poem each year for a series of illustrated pamphlets with holiday themes to be sent to the firm's clients and business acquaintances as Christmas greetings. This series, called the "Ariel Series", would release 38 pamphlets from a selection of English writers and poets from 1927 through 1931. The first poem that Eliot wrote, "Journey of the Magi", was released as the eighth in the series in August 1927. Eliot would follow with four more poems: "A Song for Simeon" in August 1928, "Animula" in October 1929, "Marina" in September 1930, and "Triumphal March" in October 1931. Four of Eliot's five Ariel poems, including "Journey of the Magi", were accompanied by illustrations by American-born avant garde artist, E. McKnight Kauffer. Faber & Gwyer, Ltd., printed the "Journey of the Magi" in a 7¼" × 4 ¾", Octavo (8vo) pamphlet "line block in black with brown and grey; casing, thin card covered with yellow laid paper." The font of the cover and poem text was "Imprint" created by Gerard Meynell & J. H. Mason in 1913 for the printing trade magazine The Imprint. The poem was printed on two pages, accompanied a colour images by Kauffer, and included one page of advertisements. Faber & Gwyer contracted with the Curwen Press in Plaistow to print 5,000 copies. There was a limited edition of 350 copies that was printed "on Zanders' hand-made paper". According to Gilmour, the edition was printed "in batches of eight." A yellow cover was used for Eliot's poem after Curwen's designer Paul Nash objected for its use in the seventh Ariel pamphlet, Siegfried Sassoon's "Nativity". In 1936, Faber & Faber, the successor firm to Faber &