Warwick, Wear Giffard, Cliff Hill, 1n, 2n, 3, 4n
Warwick Hospital, 1, Plate 8A
watch repair, 1
Watkins, Vernon, 1, 2, 3
Watt, Peter, 1, 2, 3, 4
Wavell, Field Marshal Archibald, 1
Webb, Mary, 1, 2n
Wellington, Shropshire, 1, 2, 3, 4; Ercall Hill, 1;
the Wrekin, 1, 2;
Crescent Hotel, 1, 2;
The Red Lion, 1, 2;
The Raven, 1;
L’s lodgings in, 1n:
Alexander House, New Church Road, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;
‘Glentworth’, King Street, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;
7 Ladycroft, 1, 2n
Werningerode Rathaus, picture postcard, 1
‘westerns’, 1
Weston, Geoffrey: 1n, 2n,
Westminster Abbey, 1, 2, 3n
Weymouth, 1, 2n
White, John, 1n
Whitsun, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Whitsun Weddings, The, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5n; Listen Records, 1
‘WHO LOVED IS’, anonymous poem, 1
Who’s Who, 1
Wiertz, Antoine, picture postcard, Une Tête Coupée, 1
Wijayatileka, Lila, 1, 2n
Wilberforce, Richard, Lord, 1
Wilberforce, Sir William, 1
Wilde, Oscar, 1, 2; ‘On the Decay of Lying’, 1;
Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions, Frank Harris, 1, 2n
Wilenski, R. H., 1, 2n
Wilks (neighbour), 1, 2n, 3, 4, 5
William of Orange, 1
Williams, Charles, 1
Williams, Emlyn, Night Must Fall, 1
Wilson, Harold, 1, 2n
Winchester, 1
Wodehouse, P. G., Performing Flea, 1, 2n
Wood, Arthur, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Woolf, Virginia, To the Lighthouse, 1
Woolworths, 1, 2, 3
Wordsworth, William, 1; The Prelude, 1
Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), 1, 2, 3, 4n
Wray, Vivienne, 1, 2n
Wrekin, the, 1, 2
Wrench, Mary (later Judd), 1, 2, 3; trip to Busby Hall, 1;
borrows L’s books, 1;
helps L rescue cat from lamp standard, 1n;
L surprises with cat mask, 1n;
misdirects Valentine card, 1;
leads the Library ‘cat lobby’, 1, 2;
marries, 1;
L buys Valentine for, 1;
L visits in maternity home, 1, 2n;
L godfather to her daughter, 1;
writes to L, 1, 2n
wrestling, Cumberland style, 1, 2
Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, 1, 2n
Wyld, Henry Cecil, 1; The Universal Dictionary of the English Language, 1
x-rays, 1, 2, 3, 4
XX Poems, 1
Yeats, W. B., 1n, 2, 3, 4, 5n, 6; ‘The Fisherman’, 1;
‘The Gyres’, 1;
Last Poems and Plays, 1
Yellow Book, The, 1
Yeomen of the Guard, The, 1
Yeomans, David, 1
YMCA, 1, 2
YWCA, 1n, 2n
Yokefleet, 1
York, 1
Z, 1 and n, 2
Zimba (Eva’s neighbours’ dog), 1, 2n, 3n, 4, 5
Zuluetta, Alphonso de (‘Zulu’), 1, 2n
Zwemmer Bookshop, 1, 2n
Formal portraits of Sydney and Eva Larkin from the late 1920s.
Philip photographing his sister Kitty in the early 1930s; presumably taken by Sydney Larkin.
The Larkins and the Days, c. 1930. Front row: Auntie Nellie (wife of Eva’s brother Arthur), Eva Larkin, PAL, Eva Day; back row: Kitty Larkin, Kenneth Day, Sydney Larkin.
The Larkin family on holiday, Bigbury on Sea, 1932. Photographs taken by Sydney.
Eva photographed by Sydney in Germany, 1934.
Sydney and Eva in Schoenau, 1935; with a holiday friend, ‘Clarice’.
Philip at fifteen on a visit to the stalactites and stalagmites at Wiehl, North Rhineland-Westphalia (August or September 1937).
‘My father liked the jolly singing in beer-cellars, three-four time to accordions […] think of that for someone who was just buying the first Count Basie records!’ (Further Requirements, 54)
From Larkin’s Oxford photograph album, a small lined notebook: ‘B. Noël Hughes, Norman C. Iles, James H. Willcox, PAL, Philip S. Brown.’
‘I am definitely S. John’s College Secretary of the English Club! This gives one a pleasing sense of importance. I have just put up a notice on the college board signed “P. A. Larkin (Coll. Sec.)” in two inks.’ (22 January 1941)
Oxford album: ‘J. B. Sutton in battledress’.
‘Diana Gollancz’. ‘It was for her that I drew my first “creatures” – she used to call everyone “dear creature”.’ (6 April 1967)
Darned socks, recovered from 105 Newland Park in 2004 after Monica Jones’s death. ‘I darned 2 pairs last Tuesday with great satisfaction. Only not having any khaki wool I had to darn in grey.’ (7 March 1943)
Photograph-postcard sent to Kitty for her birthday, 20 August 1946.
Ruth Bowman. ‘Ruth, if you don’t remember, is the girl I used to help with essays.’ (28 October 1945)
Bruce Montgomery. ‘When Bruce visits me it seems to cost as much as my visiting any one else.’ (27 October 1946)
Monica Jones c. 1947. ‘Miss Jones said [A Girl in Winter] reminded her of Eliz. Bowen’s Death of the heart which I am in consequence reading.’ (16 February 1947)
Hilly and Kingsley Amis: ‘a letter from Kingsley bitterly complaining about the amount of married life spent with either his wife’s parents or his own! I sympathise with the poor chap.’ (12 February 1948)
Eva and Sydney Larkin in August 1947: ‘how young you both are – not young in the sense of silly, but young in keen response to things. Let Mop see a pretty patch of garden, or Pop get his nose into a new book, and the interest aroused is as quick and vivid as my own, and sometimes more so!’ (27 May 1947)
Larkin’s photographs of Kitty and Rosemary (‘4½ months, 12 September 1947’). ‘I paid a visit to Kitty on Friday and spent a happy 4 hours or so. I invented a game of “shake-a-paw” with Rosemary, who gave an occasional toothless grin.’ (20 July 1947)
Larkin’s photograph of the entrance to Warwick Hospital, where his father died on 26 March 1948.
‘First day at 12 Dixon Drive’ (August 1948). Though Larkin chose to record this moment, he did not take his usual care to focus the camera correctly.
Larkin’s photograph of Graduation Day at Queen’s University, Belfast, 1951.
Library Assistant Molly Sellar, who married QUB Lecturer in Spanish, Arthur Terry. ‘I’m glad you occasionally do a bit at my pullover! Did I tell you Molly finished a very smart grey & white one […] I hope to take a photograph or two of her in it before I go: it really looks very nice.’ (6 February 1955)
Leo Japolsky, QUB Lecturer in French. ‘I fancy I hear Leo playing his piano in the distance […] he is a moody fool.’ (30 May 1954). Japolsky later killed his father and was committed to a psychiatric hospital.
George Hartley. ‘I heard from Hartley today that my book is in demand & that the first 300 have nearly gone. He is having another 400 bound.’ (11 January 1956)
Betty Mackereth. ‘My new secretary has begun, & seems all right in a way: no doubt she will learn. She’ll probably stay all her life, though, now.’ (26 May 1957)
Mary Judd (Wrench) with her newborn daughter Helen. ‘My photographs of Mary’s baby came out moderately well […] She has asked me to be god-father, wch is rather a tall order. I accepted though. Somebody will have to look after me when I’m old.’ (1 April 1962)
Philip and Eva with Walter, Kitty and Rosemary Hewett, late 1950s. Probably taken by PAL with a delayed-action shutter release.
‘Blak Pussy’, Kitty’s nightdress case (the spelling is the cat’s own). ‘You owe my mother 12/-! as Kitty’s nightdress case used to say.’ (26 June 1952). It
was used to hold messages about money owed by Eva or Kitty.
Maeve Brennan. ‘On Friday Maeve magnetised me to a dance at the University, where I felt my usual fish out of water self […] I do think I ought to know how to dance & drive a car! How badly educated I was! Quite unfitted for the modern world!’ (12 May 1963)
The Hartley’s daughters, Laurien (left) and Alison. ‘I had bought two “gift boxes” of soap & talcum powder for their “little” girls […] I can never think of any presents for girls between giant pandas & bottles of Extase.’ (5 February 1967)
The Brynmor Jones Library Staff in 1968. To Larkin’s right: Arthur Wood, Maeve Brennan; to his left Brenda Moon; behind him to the left: Betty Mackereth. ‘There are so many new members of staff that I feel like a stranger in my own building.’ (5 October 1969)
Eva and Nellie on holiday.
A selfie, taken with delayed-action shutter release; among photographs sent with a letter of 21 January 1958.
‘I’m glad you have enjoyed the remainder of Auntie Nellie’s stay: she is a cheerful bird in her way.’ (5 January 1961)
Monica Jones’s Haydon Bridge retreat seen c. 1961.
In 1977. ‘This Haydon Bridge place isn’t a picturesque village, exactly, nor is her cottage a picturesque cottage, but in general it has a good deal of character.’ (24 September 1961)
Eva Larkin in the Conservatory in Pearson Park. ‘I’m glad you approve of the photograph […] I have one for you as well. Creature surrounded by flowers!’ (27 June 1961)
Among seven portraits of Eva sent with a letter of 1 October 1967. ‘Is there any one you like, or Kitty wd like? Perhaps you think they’re awful! I like 6 very much though: it shows you as the dear old creature you are.’ Eva and Kitty liked nos. 6 (left) and 7 (right).
‘Virginia wonders where that nice old lady has gone who […] kept the place warm! She […] is now sitting on a low table watching me.’ (24 January 1965)
Philip and Eva in the Duke’s Head Hotel, King’s Lynn, July 1971 (with mob-cap behind). ‘My froggy […] greatly enjoyed his jaunt to King’s Lynn with your froggy. […] How they enjoyed sitting in the lounge when we had our tea on the afternoon when we arrived!’ (31 July 1971)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Philip Larkin was born in Coventry in 1922 and educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry, and St John’s College, Oxford. As well as his volumes of poems, which include The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows, he wrote two novels, Jill and A Girl in Winter, and two books of collected journalism: All What Jazz: A Record Diary and Required Writing: Miscellaneous Prose. He worked as a librarian at the University of Hull from 1955 until his death in 1985. He was one of the best-loved poets of his generation, and the recipient of innumerable honours, including the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the WH Smith Literary Award.
James Booth edited Philip Larkin’s early girls’ school stories and poems as Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions, and has published two critical studies of the poet’s work: Philip Larkin: Writer (1991) and Philip Larkin: The Poet’s Plight (2005). He is literary adviser to the Philip Larkin Society and editor of its journal, About Larkin. He was formerly Head of the Department of English at the University of Hull, where he had been a colleague of Larkin’s for seventeen years.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
by Philip Larkin
poetry
THE NORTH SHIP
XX POEMS
THE FANTASY POETS NO. 21
THE LESS DECEIVED (The Marvell Press)
THE WHITSUN WEDDINGS
HIGH WINDOWS
COLLECTED POEMS (edited by Anthony Thwaite)
EARLY POEMS AND JUVENILIA (edited by A. T. Tolley)
COMPLETE POEMS (edited by Archie Burnett)
THE OXFORD BOOK OF
TWENTIETH-CENTURY ENGLISH VERSE (ed.)
fiction
JILL
A GIRL IN WINTER
TROUBLE AT WILLOW GABLES (edited by James Booth)
non-fiction
ALL WHAT JAZZ: A RECORD DIARY 1961–71
REQUIRED WRITING: MISCELLANEOUS PIECES 1955–82
FURTHER REQUIREMENTS: INTERVIEWS, BROADCASTS, STATEMENTS AND REVIEWS 1952–85
(edited by Anthony Thwaite)
letters
SELECTED LETTERS OF PHILIP LARKIN 1940–1985 (edited by Anthony Thwaite)
LETTERS TO MONICA (edited by Anthony Thwaite)
COPYRIGHT
First published in 2018
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2018
All rights reserved
Philip Larkin’s letters © The Estate of Philip Larkin, 2018
Selection, introduction and editorial matter © James Booth, 2018
Design by Faber
Cover photograph reproduced by permission of the Society of Authors on behalf of the Estate of Philip Larkin © 2018
The right of James Booth to be identified as editor of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–33561–9
Philip Larkin Page 70
