Valerie Eliot, the widow and literary executor of poet T.S. Eliot, has died at the age of 86.

The poet's estate says she died Friday at her London home after a short illness.

Valerie Eliot was the second wife of the U.S.-born Nobel literature laureate, whom she met at London publisher Faber & Faber. He was a director, she a secretary.

The couple wed in 1957. Friends said the marriage was a happy one despite the almost 40-year gap in their ages.

After T.S. Eliot's death in 1965, Valerie became his devoted executor, editing his poems and letters for publication and steadfastly refusing to cooperate with would-be biographers in keeping with the poet's last wishes.

A death notice in the Daily Telegraph newspaper said her funeral would be private.