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Early Poems and Juvenilia (2005), some unpublished pieces from Larkin's typescripts and workbooks are included, as well as verse--by turns scurrilous, satirical, affectionate, and sentimental--that had been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.
Richard Palmer is Head of English at Bedford School, an HMC-Ofsted Inspector and a Consultant for NatWest Bank. He writes regularly for Jazz Journal International and is Series Editor for Eastnote, Hull University Pressâ (TM)s new imprint of jazz studies. He is the author of a number of books on jazz. John White is Reader in American History at the University of Hull. He is the author of Billie Holiday: Her Life and Times (1987), Black Leadership in America (1985, revised 1998) and Artie Shaw: Non-Stop Flight (1998).
Archie Burnett is co-director of the Editorial Institute and professor of English at Boston University. He has edited the Oxford editions of The Poems of A. E. Housman and The Letters of A. E. Housman.