Great Regulars: Here, [Archie] Burnett's notes offer a

fascinating, compendious vade mecum into [Philip] Larkin's poetic world. Full of reassuring exactitude about variants, and extensive reference to the poet's own comments on the work, they are most stimulating of all when they cite buried sources, such as Eliot's use of the odd verb "construction" in the context of religion-founding.

These notes are at the heart of a fluently-organised volume. The four collections are followed by other poems published in the poet's lifetime, poems unpublished but dated, and other unpublished poems.

from Fiona Sampson: The Independent: The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin, edited by Archie Burnett

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