Philip Larkin 1922–85

Abstract

Philip Arthur Larkin was born in Coventry and educated at the King Henry VIII School, Coventry, and (with Kingsley Amis) at St John’s College, Oxford. He became a librarian in 1943; from 1955 he was Librarian of the Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull. From 1961 to 1971 he was jazz-critic for the Daily Telegraph and a collection of essays, All That Jazz, appeared in 1970. He was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford (1970–1), while he worked on his (controversial) anthology, The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973). His first collection of poems, The North Ship, was published in 1945. The publishers Faber and Faber encouraged him to persist with poetry. The Less Deceived (1955), The Whitsun Weddings (1964), and High Windows (1974), are slim volumes of fine poems. Larkin’s verse matches colloquial rhythms to subtle versification, varies literary and vulgar phrasing, and observes modern England with mixed affection and disdain. His novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947) deserve to be better known. A collection of prose, Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955–82, was published in 1983. He was made a Companion of Honour in 1985.