Philip Larkin

Philip Arthur Larkin was born 9 August 1922, took a first in English at Oxford in 1943, and spent thirty years as university librarian at Hull, where most of his published work took shape. His first poetry book, The North Ship, appeared in 1945, followed by two novels, but real prominence came in 1955 with The Less Deceived, then The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He also served as the Telegraph's jazz critic from 1961 to 1971 and edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse in 1973. Influenced by Auden, Yeats, and Hardy, his tightly structured verse carried what…