The Complete Poems

Philip Larkin; Archie Burnett (ed.)

ISBN 10: 0571240062 / ISBN 13: 9780571240067

Published by Faber and Faber, 2012

About this Item

First Edition (London, 2012). No markings, annotations, or inscriptions. Internally fine. Unclipped dust jacket. No tears or conspicuous damage, creasing to the spine head and the corners, with some (very) minor local rubbing wear. (Now in a protective plastic cover.) Mauve paper boards with bright silver titling to the spine. The boards remain notably clean, but show a few light bumps to the edges, and to the corners also. Remains a complete and collectible first edition for all but the most exacting of collectors. Edited with an Introduction and Commentary by Archie Burnett. xxx, 729pp.

Seller Inventory # 4621

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Complete Poems
• Publisher: Faber and Faber
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0571240062
• ISBN 13: 9780571240067
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good +
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

About this title

Synopsis

This entirely new edition brings together all of Philip Larkin's poems. In addition to those in Collected Poems (1988), and in the Early Poems and Juvenilia (2005), some unpublished pieces from Larkin's typescripts and workbooks are included, as well as verse (by turns scurrilous, satirical, affectionate, and sentimental) tucked away in his letters. The manuscript and printed sources have been scrutinized afresh; more detailed accounts than hitherto available of the sources of the text and of dates of composition are provided; and previous accounts of composition dates have been corrected. Variant wordings from Larkin's typescripts and the early printings are recorded.

For the first time, the 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. Due prominence is given to the poet's comments on his poems, which often outline the circumstances that gave rise to a poem, or state what he was trying to achieve. Larkin played down his literariness, but his poetry enrichingly alludes to and echoes the writings of many others; Archie Burnett's commentary establishes him as a more complex and more literary poet than many readers have suspected.

About the Author

Archie Burnett is co-director (with Christopher Ricks) of the Editorial Institute and Professor of English at Boston University. He has edited the scholarly Oxford editions of The Poems of A. E. Housman (1997) and The Letters of A. E. Housman (2007). Philip Larkin was born in 1922 and grew up in Coventry. In 1955 he became Librarian of the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull, a post he held 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 W.H. Smith Award.