The Philip Larkin: The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin

The Philip Larkin: The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin

The complete poems of the most admired British poet of his generation

This entirely new edition brings together all of Philip Larkin's poems. In addition to those that appear in Collected Poems (1988) and Early Poems and Juvenilia (2005), some unpublished pieces from Larkin's typescripts and workbooks are included, as well as verse--by turns scurrilous, satirical, affectionate, and sentimental--that had been tucked away in his letters.
For the first time, Larkin's poems are given a comprehensive commentary. This draws critically upon, and substantially extends, the accumulated scholarship on Larkin, and covers closely relevant historical contexts, persons and places, allusions and echoes, and linguistic usage. Prominence is given to the poet's comments on his own work, which often outline the circumstances that gave rise to a poem or state that he was trying to achieve. Larkin often played down his literariness, but his poetry enrichingly alludes to and echoes the writings of many others. Archie Burnett's commentary establishes Larkin as a more complex and more literary poet than many readers have suspected.

In 1922, Philip Larkin was born in Coventry. He also published two novels, Jill and A Girl in Winter, and two books of collected journalism, All What Jazz: A Record Diary and Necessary Writing: Assorted Prose, in addition to his volumes of poetry, which include The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, and High Windows. From 1955 until his death in 1985, he worked as a librarian at the University of Hull. He was the most well-known poet of his period, receiving numerous awards such as the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry and the WH Smith Award.