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First published in 1989 "Philip Larkin, the Marvell Press, and Me" is the story of how this small publishing company became a chapter in literary history when, in 1955, the then novice publishers, of which Jean Hartley was one, were entrusted with the manuscript of Larkin's "The Less Deceived". "The Less Deceived", Larkin's second collection, contained the mature Philip Larkin style - that of a detached observer of what Jean Hartley referred to as 'ordinary people doing ordinary things' - the virtues of which came to be associated with The Movement, the post-war generation of poets that used plain language and traditional forms to address everyday life in Britain. The themes of "The Less Deceived" resonated with readers and it became one of the most outstanding collections of 1955. "Philip Larkin, the Marvell Press, and Me" charts that progress and introduces the reader to the real Philip Larkin. 'Jean Hartley's story is a vital piece of evidence for anyone curious about Larkin's life' - Andrew Motion, "Observer". ... Read more

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York Notes are guides to literature in English, covering major British, American, Commonwealth and Third World works as well as English translations of some important writings in other languages. The Notes are designed for GCSE and A level and are tailored to exam requirements. The books provide criticism on specific texts plus questions. Information on the author and the historical background to the text is given and a specimen essay, commentaries, hints for study and a summary of the text is included. The present book provides a commentary and notes on selected poems by Philip Larkin. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

That which survives
My introduction to Philip Larkin and his collection of verse,' The Whitsun Weddings' I owe to my friend David Evennett, one-time Member of Parliament for Erith and Crayford. Back when I was researcher for a Member of Parliament, I had an avocation as a poet. David discovered this, and recommended Larkin as a poetic voice worthy of attention. (His researcher acted surprised, blurting out loud much to our amusement, 'And here I always took you for a Philistine!') I have been grateful ever since, as I frequently return to this slim volume of verse for inspiration and reflection.

'Whitsun Weddings' includes 32 poems. A small book first published in 1964, it has proven so popular (something rare in poetry circles) that it has been reprinted four times during the 1970s, four times during the 1980s, and continues to be reprinted periodically up to the present day.

John Betjeman, one-time poet laureate of England, once commented of Larkin that 'this tenderly observant poet writes clearly, rhythmically, and thoughtfully about what all of us can understand.' This is the key to Larkin's verse -- accessibility. There are no obvious poetical devices that overpower the meaning or the language; there are no forced schemes, however brilliantly executed, that impose themselves on the reader. The gentle rhythms carry the reader like a slow-moving train on a well-cushioned track.

The poem 'Mr. Bleaney' is the one David first drew attention to when I brought in the small book a few days after his recommendation.

But if he stood and watched the frigid wind
Tousling the clouds, lay on the fusty bed
Telling himself that this was home, and grinned,
And shivered, without shaking off the dread
That how we live measures our own nature,
And at his age having no more to show
Than one hired box should make him pretty sure
He warranted no better, I don't know.

These words resonate with me at different times in my life, as they did with David. There is a desire to make someone of oneself, to have something to show for one's life. In the development of Mr. Bleaney's life, and his successor in the rented room, one can take stock and reappraise one's own life. What is the value, and how is it calculated?

Larkin's poetry frequently turns to the matter of religion and spirituality, without getting overly fussy or remote. In the poem Water, Larkin gives a very brief description of a spirit-freeing and pluralistic yet communal experience.

Larkin addresses the issues of age and youth, of love and loneliness, of despair and hope, all within the space of these 32 wonderful poems. The poem 'Wild Oats' incorporates all of these themes in one compact, bittersweet tale of life. Who could fail to wonder at the matter-of-fact and poignant description of the man who couldn't commit to one woman, having met only briefly her more beautiful friend, and seven years later is still unable to forget? The poem `A Study of Reading Habits' likewise, dealing with dreams conjured up through reading during youth gone the way of reality in middle age, ending with a too-familiar sour-grapes feeling, `Books are a load of crap'.

Of course, I mustn't neglect the title piece, 'The Whitsun Weddings'. Perfectly capturing mood and manner of weddings, the routine and the cycle of life, Larkin in fact uses the image of travelling by rail as a subtle motif for the journey through life, the Whitsun Weddings being a stop through which many (a dozen couples in this poem) proceed on their way to lives that will be lived out in `London spread out like the sun / Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat.'

Larkin's final word in this collection is a very worthy word -- one that will preach, in the words of a cleric friend of mine -- and one that brings to very sweet encapsulation his image of the Arundel Tomb, carefully and tenderly drawn for us in words, evoking images of when it was first created to how it is perceived today in its state of weathered testimony of the couple buried together:

Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

This particular volume pairs the 'Whitsun Weddings' with his earlier work, 'The Less Deceived', first published in 1955.This work was the one that established Larkin as an 'up-and-coming voice' in English poetry.He was part of 'The Movement' (which also included writers such as Kingsley Amis and Thom Gunn), which avoided sentimentality that was more typical of Romantic poetry.Emotion and wordcraft are still strongly present, but imagery is more grounded and real, less flowery and impressionistic.

There are connections here, and not just stylistically.Larkin's poem 'Toads' (reflections on working life) in the earlier work is connected to 'Toads Revisited' in the later 'Whitsun Weddings'.Touches such as these keep the ideas going across time.
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Part of a series of literature guides designed for GCSE coursework requirements, this book contains author details, background to the work, summaries of the text, critical commentaries, analysis of characterization, and sample questions with guideline answers. ... Read more

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The Philip Larkin I Knew traces the author’s close friendship with the poet and stretches over his 30 year tenure of office as librarian of the University of Hull, taking in his literary achievements from The Less Deceived (1955), through The Whitsun Weddings (1964), to High Windows (1974). It reveals Larkin in a new light – courteous, compassionate, generous, and a man of deep sensitivity and charm – with a natural sense of fun and instinctive wit; in contrast to the gloomy and somewhat objectionable portrait that has emerged since his death.
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Philip Larkin is recognised as one of the most important writers to have emerged in Britain since the Second World War. First published in 1982, Andrew Motion’s study begins with an account of Larkin’s life and literary background and discusses his literary relationship with Hardy and Yeats and his association with the Movement. He analyses Larkin’s two novels and assesses his three mature collections. Throughout the book much reference is made to uncollected reviews and articles and occasionally to unpublished manuscripts. Rather than developing the familiar line on Larkin as an empirical and melancholy writer, Andrew Motion explores the Symbolist and transcendent element in his work, and emphasises its range and variety.

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The first edition of Barry Bloomfield's extensive bibliography of Philip Larkin covered the years 1933-1976. This second revised and enlarged edition covers all Larkin's published work to the end of 1994, including "Selected Letters" and "Collected Poems". The list of critical material is much extended owing to the explosion of interest in Larkin's poetry after his death. Every section has been brought up to date and the few omissions from the first edition repaired. ... Read more

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Philip Larkin, known to many through his poems, contrived to present a picture of himself to the world which kept many facets of his complicated personality hidden. In this biography Andrew Motion, Larkin's literary executor and close friend, reveals the full man. Granted access to private documents and assisted by the men and women most intimately connected with the poet, this book tells the story of how Larkin, to the cost of his own happiness and that of others, achieved "a writer's life". The author has won the Somerset Maugham Award for poetry and biography. ... Read more

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A stimulating study that places Larkin in his literary and personal context, discusses current controversies and literary criticism but, above all, perceptively explores all his major poems. ... Read more

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The latest reissue of Philip Larkin's new classic anthology includes a Foreword by the poet's biographer, Andrew Motion. Successor to W.B. Yeats's Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892-1935, The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse ranges widely across this century's verse, introducing many less well-known poets among the acknowledged greats. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Of Limited, but Considerable, Interest
This is a bad anthology to introduce someone to 20.c. poetry; the selections of many important poets are both too idiosyncratic and too meagre. Besides, the first half of the book includes lots of vaguely interesting doggerel of questionable poetic value.

On the other hand, there are several things to be said for it. The first is that Larkin put in a lot of good stuff that is not usually anthologised. Among the inspired selections are Auden's "No Change of Place", "Brussels in Winter" and "Goodbye to the Mezzogiorno"; Kipling's "McAndrew's Hymn"; Edward Thomas's "Team's Head-Brass"; Empson's "Success" and the whole Betjeman section. But most of his selections from particular authors are sensible and predictable. He is very conservative with Eliot and Yeats. Yeats also gets too little space -- 20 pp. as opposed to 24 for Auden and 30 for Eliot. It's nice to see that Larkin has picked some of his own stuff; it's more or less what you'd expect him to have picked, though. Some of his choices are weird -- Peter Porter's "Annotations on Auschwitz" is represented by its clever but not quite self-contained last quatrain -- and of course most of the (many) poems chosen from the early 1900s are not very good.

This anthology also functions as a record of Larkin's taste and sense of the poetic tradition of his time, and yields a few parallels with his own poetic practice. There's also an interesting find: J.B.S. Haldane's poem titled "Cancer's a funny thing", for instance, which is the source of the line in Auden's "Miss Gee".

Another thing to note about this anthology is that the 1960s were less disconnected from the pre-war era than our generation is, and probably more capable of understanding its verse and appreciating it. Most of the writers of that period -- Davies, Gibson, Masefield, Young -- are now hardly read except in anthologies like this, and it's good and perhaps important that they should be read.

Larkin's Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry
Readers of Larkin's excellent letters will have come across frequent complaints about his 'Oxford Book of Two Cent Verse' as he dismissivly calls it. Although he found the task of producing it onerous, it's very good -- if one accepts it for what it is.

Anthologies, having limited space, make a choice between representing the best writers at length, or representing a larger number of writers more briefly. Larkin chooses the latter:the book includes 584 poems by about 200 poets, which this means that many poets (outside the "greats" -- Hardy, Yeats and Eliot -- who are all fully represented) are represented by as little as two poems.

But thisapproach has virtues. Larkin includes poems by many poets who aren't considered "major writers"; and who, while often well-known in their lives, are not likely to be known to readers now. This is interesting, of course, as it reminds a reader that poets are not only influenced by the best writers, but also by the second best. There is also, perhaps, an attempt here to sketch a certain tradition of English twentieth century writing: one that, although it includes Eliot and Basil Bunting, is in the main, colloquial, unheroic and keen to document domestic events and emotions in poetry that is, if not strictly formal, at least nodding at formal arrangement.

Lovers of Larkin, or of the sort of poetry outlined above, may well find themselves overjoyed by this anthology. Readers whose tastes are for the outlandish, excessive and outragous may be impatient. Personally I think that poetry is at its healthiest when these two groups are not entirely separated: when they both can agree on certain writers to admire; and when both of them at least are aware of and respect the other's tastes.

Perhaps people who find themselves entirely in accord with this anthology should also look at Rosenthal's 'Poetry in English' -- a dull name but a fantastic anthology -- for an alternative view of Twentieth Century poetry. (And perhaps, for fuller coverage of the post-1960s poets, Lucie-Smith's 'British Poetry Since 1945'; and for a look at where this alternative English tradition can lead to, Crozier and Longville's 'A Various Art' or Sinclair's 'Conductors of Chaos'.) And for the opposite group: this anthology, with the reminder that Pound, the key figure in the Modernist movement, thought very highly of the key poetic figure in Larkin's English tradition, Thomas Hardy. ... Read more

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Brings together Larkin's reviews, articles and essays written for The Guardian, The Observer, The New Statesman and numerous other publications. As well as being passionate and knowledgeable about jazz, the pieces are beautifully written. ... Read more

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This series aims to introduce students to a wide variety of critical opinion and to show students, by example, how to construct a good critical essay. This collection of specially-commissioned short critical essays is designed for A level students. The essays contain diverse, often conflicting opinions, presented a clearly written and carefully structured manner which reflects the student's need to construct well thought-out arguments in the limited time examinations allow. They are also designed to act as a stimulus for independent thought and for the development of personal viewpoints. Each essay concentrates on a single area of thought or study of direct relevance to the type of essay students will be required to write, and uses textual evidence and quotations in support of the conclusions. A variety of approaches are used in the essays, to illustrate the various ways in which literary evidence can be organized to argue a viewpoint. Bryan Loughrey has been involved in A level paper-setting and policy-making. Linda Cookson has edited several Longman Study Texts titles published by Longman for the UK Secondary Schools English List. ... Read more

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Philip Larkin and English Poetry is a practical criticism of Larkin's poetry which discusses the poet's views on poetry as they are made visible in his prose writings and his interviews, Larkin's affinities with a series of other English poets (including Dr Samuel Johnson, D.H.Lawrence and the Imagists, and Ted Hughes, Thom Gunn and R.S.Thomas) which have been overlooked by previous critics are referred to, and Terry Whalen provides close readings of the individual poems that will appeal to both the first-time reader of Larkin's works and those who are seasoned readers of England's finest poet. Whalen stresses the depth and integrity of the 'other' Larkin, the poet of beauty and of witness who explores the world of observation with a hunger for meaning and a sense of wonder which earlier reviewers and critics have tended to ignore. ... Read more