Philip Larkin met Monica Jones at University College Leicester in autumn 1946, when they were both twenty-four; he was the newly-appointed assistant librarian and she was an English lecturer. In 1950 Larkin moved to Belfast, and thence to Hull, while Moni
Poetry remains a living part of the culture of Japan today. The clichés of everyday speech are often to be traced to famous ancient poems, and the traditional forms of poetry are widely known and loved. The congenial attitude comes from a poetical histor
A subtle and moving account of a young English undergraduate from the provinces, this portrait of Oxford during the war is now regarded by man critics as a classic of its kind.'Jill is, in a sense, a kind of cryptic manifesto. It is a novel about writing,
Philip Larkin (1922-1985) remains England's best-loved poet - a writer matchlessly capable of evoking his native land and of touching all readers from the most sophisticated intellectual to the proverbial common reader. The late John Betjeman observed tha
Since The Paris Review was founded in 1953, it has given us invaluable conversations with the greatest writers of our age, vivid self-portraits that are themselves works of finely crafted literature. From William Faulkner's determination that a great nove
The North Ship, Philip Larkin's earliest volume of verse, was first published in August 1945 and reissued in 1966 by Faber. The introduction, by Larkin himself, explains the circumstances of its publication and the influences which shaped its content.This
Philip Larkin's second collection, The Less Deceived was published by The Marvell Press in 1955, and now appears for the first time in Faber covers.The eye can hardly pick them out From the cold shade they shelter in, Till wind distresses tail and mane; T