The North Ship, Philip Larkin's earliest volume of verse, was first published in August 1945. The introduction, by Larkin himself, explains the circumstances of its publication and the influences which shaped its contents.
Philip Larkin met Monica Jones at University College Leicester in autumn 1946, when they were both twenty-four; he was the newly-appointed assistant librarian and she was an English lecturer. In 1950 Larkin moved to Belfast, and thence to Hull, while Monica remained in Leicester, becoming by turns his correspondent, lover and closest confidante, in a relationship which lasted over forty years until the poet's death in 1985. This remarkable unpublished correspondence only came to light after Monica Jones's death in 2001, and consists of nearly two thousand letters, postcards and telegrams, which chronicle - day by day, sometimes hour by hour - every aspect of Larkin's life and the convolutions of their relationship.
Letters Home gives access to the last major archive of Larkin's writing to remain unpublished: the letters to members of his family. These correspondences help tell the story of how Larkin came to be the writer and the man he was: to his father Sydney, a 'conservative anarchist' and admirer of Hitler, who died relatively early in Larkin's life; to his timid depressive mother Eva, who by contrast, lived long, and whose final years were shadowed by dementia; and to his sister Kitty, the sparse surviving fragment of whose correspondence with her brother gives an enigmatic glimpse of a complex and intimate relationship- But it was the years during which he and his sister looked after their mother in particular that shaped the writer we know so well: a number of poems written over this time are for her, and the mood of pain, shadow and despondency that characterises his later verse draws its strength from his experience of the long, lonely years of her senility. One surprising element in the volume, however, is the joie de vivre shown in the large number of witty and engaging drawings of himself and Eva, as 'Young Creature' and 'Old Creature', with which he enlivens his letters throughout the three decades of her widowhood.This important edition, meticulously edited by Larkin's biographer, James Booth, is a key piece of scholarship that completes the portrait of this most cherished of English poets.
Philip Larkin's second collection, The Less Deceived was published by The Marvell Press in 1955, and now appears for the first time in Faber covers. The eye can hardly pick them out From the cold shade they shelter in, Till wind distresses tail and mane; Then one crops grass, and moves about - The other seeming to look on - And stands anonymous again. from 'At Grass
A young man from Northern England struggles to find a sense of belonging at Oxford University during WWII in this “brilliant” novel by a literary icon (The Times). John, who’s never traveled far from his northern town of Huddleston, finds himself an undergraduate at Oxford University in 1940. A shy, insecure working-class young man, he is awed by his confident, careless roommate and yearns to fit in, clumsily pursuing a girl from a wealthy family. But as his efforts fail, he retreats further into a dream world in this early novel by Philip Larkin, who would go on to become one of the most celebrated poetic voices of postwar Britain. “Provides a revealing portrait of Oxford and the English class system as it existed during World War II . . . Mr. Larkin’s gift for using landscape as a mirror of an individual’s emotions is very much in evidence.” —The New York Times Includes an introduction by the author
This classic novel captures twelve transformative hours in the life of an exiled woman living in England and working at a library during World War II. Philip Larkin’s second novel was first published in 1947. This story of Katherine Lind and Robin Fennel, of winter and summer, of war and peace, of exile and holidays, is memorable for its compassionate precision and for the uncommon and unmistakable distinction of its writing. Praise for A Girl in Winter “A highly sensitive, rather meditative and slowly moving novel, a work of deliberately modest proportions reminiscent of Virginia Woolf and the early Elizabeth Bowen. . . . Larkin has the ability to evoke, in a few bleak images, a sense of waste and disillusion and emptiness that is as profound as the similarly barren vision of Beckett.” —Joyce Carol Oates, The New Republic “A Girl in Winter is a beautifully constructed, funny and profoundly sad book.” —Andrew Motion
Drawing on the papers deposited after his death in the Brynmore Jones Library, Hull, this volume collects together virtually all of Philip Larkin's remaining unpublished fiction.
The best way to experience the poetry of Philip Larkin on your iPad. Faber Voices lifts classic poems off the page, bringing together audio recordings of great poets reading their own work with an editor's selection of their poems. A wonderful and intimate experience for poetry lovers, Faber Voices are also an invaluable resource for those studying or exploring these works for the first time. This selection allows you to appreciate the poems as never before, in a beautifully clean design, with options to read and listen to the poet simultaneously. This is how poetry for iBooks should be.Features:See each poem exactly as it was intended, in a fixed format with no erroneous line breaks.Hear every poem as it should be heard, read by the poet at the tap of a finger.Experience the ultimate Larkin selection, made by his editors and estate exclusively for this ebook. The full list of poems:MCMXIVAt GrassDaysMr BleaneyAfternoonsVers de SociétéThe TreesChurch GoingThe ExplosionThe Whitsun WeddingsAn Arundel TombPhilip Larkin was born in Coventry in 1922. He was the best-loved poet of his generation, and the recipient of innumerable honours, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.Search 'Seamus Heaney', 'Wendy Cope' or 'Ted Hughes' for more Faber Voices.
Philip Larkin (1922-85) was not only one of the foremost English poets of the twentieth century, but also a notable novelist and a distinguished writer on jazz. He was jazz critic for The Daily Telegraph between 1961 and 1971. Jazz Writings brings together Larkin's reviews, articles and essays written for The Guardian, The Observer, The New Statesman, and numerous other publications.
Philip Larkin was one of the most admired and loved English poets of the twentieth century. His Collected Poems has become essential reading on any bookshelf, covering his four published volumes and late work. But Larkin was a prolific writer in his youth, and wrote over two hundred and fifty poems in the years leading up to his first collection. Drawing on the pamphlets, manuscripts and workbooks from 1938 to 1946-46, the Early Poems reveals, for the first time, the formative writings and literary origins of this most gifted of poets.
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