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Philip Larkin: Letters Home

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Philip Larkin: Letters Home
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Philip Larkin
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:688
Dimensions(mm): Height 234,Width 153
Category/GenrePoetry by individual poets
ISBN/Barcode 9780571335602
ClassificationsDewey:821.914
Audience
General
Edition Main

Publishing Details

Publisher Faber & Faber
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publication Date 3 November 2022
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Letters Home gives access to the last major archive of Larkin's writing to remain unpublished: the letters to members of his family.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. In particular, it was the years during which he and his sister looked after their mother 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 James Booth is a key piece of scholarship that completes the portrait of this most cherished of English poets.

Author Biography

Philip Larkin was born in Coventry in 1922. As well as his volumes of poems, which include The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows, he wrote two novels, Jill and A Girl in Winter, and two books of collected journalism: All What Jazz: A Record Diary and Required Writing: Miscellaneous Prose. He worked as a librarian at the University of Hull from 1955 until his death in 1985. He was the best-loved poet of his generation, and the recipient of innumerable honours, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry and the WH Smith Award.