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 critics called "glum accuracy" and "lowered sights" - he said deprivation was his daffodils. The posthumous publication of his letters in 1992 triggered controversy over racism and misogyny that shadowed his reputation, yet he was named Britain's best-loved poet in 2003 and greatest postwar writer in 2008. He declined the Poet Laureateship in 1984 and died 2 December 1985; Hull unveiled a statue in 2010, Westminster Abbey a memorial stone in 2016.