Authors: James Booth
52.
28 January 1948.
SL
, p. 144.
53.
‘Going’, ‘Deep Analysis’, ‘Come then to prayers’, ‘And the wave sings because it is moving’, ‘Two Guitar Pieces’, ‘The Dedicated’, ‘Wedding-Wind’, ‘Träumerei’, ‘To a Very Slow Air’, ‘At the chiming of light upon sleep’, ‘Many famous feet have trod’, ‘Thaw’.
7: Just Too Hard for Me (1945–50)
1.
A Conversation with Neil Powell,
FR
, p. 32.
2.
Ibid.
3.
Interview with the
Observer
,
RW
, p. 49.
4.
20 September 1945.
SL
, pp. 109–10.
5.
To Sutton, 5 March 1942. Not in
SL
.
6.
W. H. Auden,
The English Auden
, ed. Edward Mandelson (London: Faber & Faber, 1977), p. 238.
7.
A Conversation with Ian Hamilton,
FR
, p. 24.
8.
Ibid.
9.
12 October 1943.
SL
, p. 75.
10.
Richard Bradford,
The Odd Couple: The Curious Friendship between Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin
(London: Robson Press, 2012), pp. 91–2.
11.
TWG
, pp. 279–80.
12.
See ibid., pp. xxxiii–xxxv.
13.
Ibid., p. 313.
14.
Bradford,
The Odd Couple
, pp. 91–2.
15.
TWG
, p. 324n.
16.
Ibid., p. 324.
17.
Personal communication, Ruth Siverns (née Bowman), 2 April 1999.
18.
TWG
, p. 356.
19.
Interview with the
Observer
,
RW
, p. 49.
20.
A Conversation with Ian Hamilton,
FR
, p. 24.
21.
Pamela Hanley, personal communication, 18 October 2000. For reminiscences of Monica in Leicester see
AL
12 (October 2001), pp. 14–20. For a sample of Monica’s essay-marking style see James Booth,
Philip Larkin: Writer
(Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), pp. 26–7.
22.
TWG
, p. 371.
23.
None of Larkin’s contemporaries at Leicester is able to identify a model for Mrs Klein. There was a refugee from Germany at the University College, but she was nothing like Larkin’s character. Monica Jones commented: ‘There may have been someone Philip knew, but I didn’t.’ James Booth, ‘Glimpses’ (interview with Monica Jones),
AL
12 (October 2001), p. 22.
24.
TWG
, pp. 371–2.
25.
Ibid., p. 370.
26.
Ibid., p. 463.
27.
Ibid., pp. 450, 463.
28.
8 September 1948.
LKA
, p. 186.
29.
LKA, p. 209.
30.
The name is, appropriately, that of the minor society poet Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–39).
31.
TWG
, pp. 422–42.
32.
Monica Jones, personal communication, 26 January 1999.
33.
‘An Interview with John Haffenden’,
FR
, p. 49.
8: Crisis and Escape (1947–50)
1.
6 December 1947.
LKA
, p. 145.
2.
Motion (p. 180) misdates the marriage in August.
3.
Letter to his parents, 27 May 1947.
4.
SL
, p. 143.
5.
Ibid., p. 144.
6.
Ibid., pp. 144–5.
7.
LM
, p. 5.
8.
The last of these plum trees succumbed in 2012. See also David Gerard and Graham Landon, ‘Plum, in the Middle: The Sixth Annual Birthday Walk’,
AL
14 (October 2002), pp. 20–4.
9.
Radio Times
, 16 August 1973, p. 11. Burnett (
Complete Poems
, p. 358) believes this poem was ‘Wedding-Wind’, but Larkin was only twenty-four when he wrote that poem.
10.
DPL/1/1/72.
11.
DPL/2/1/1/14. A.T. Tolley, ‘Lost Pages’,
AL
11 (April 2001), p. 26. Burnett includes the lines in
Complete Poems
‘on the chance that they may constitute a complete poem’ (p. 592).
12.
18 May 1948.
SL
, p. 147.
13.
11 August 1948.
SL
, p. 148.
14.
When Trevor Tolley asked him about the torn-out pages in the early 1980s Larkin replied with evasive casualness: ‘Some missing pages contained material I did not wish to make public, and probably still have somewhere; others were torn out simply when I wanted a sheet of blank paper, for any reason.’ Tolley, ‘Lost Pages’, p. 26.
15.
He even kept one half-page which is quite blank. Ibid.
16.
Burnett corrects ‘blocks’ in Thwaite’s
Collected Poems
of 1988.
17.
Burnett (
Complete Poems
, p. 593) does not mention the original title. See Tolley, ‘Lost Pages’, p. 24.
18.
Burnett mentions only the typescript and follows the 1988
Collected Poems
in dating the poem ‘?1950’.
19.
Burnett restores the parentheses omitted by Thwaite in the
Collected Poems
.
20.
Interview with
Paris Review
,
RW
, p. 74.
21.
SL
, p. 152.
22.
LKA
, pp. 204–5.
23.
13 July 1949.
SL
, p. 153.
24.
To Sutton, 3 October 1949. Not in
SL
.
25.
SL
, p. 156.