The complete poems of Philip Larkin - Philip Larkin

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Poems and Juvenilia (2005), some unpublished pieces from Larkin's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.