Tag Philip Larkin

“I was therefore lucky”

Robert Messenger reviews a collection of Philip Larkin’s letters to his mother, his sister, his lovers and others. Along the way, Messenger quotes a presumably autobiographical note by Larkin first published in Andrew Motion’s biography of the poet: My mother,…

In defense of private bigotry

It does happen, more often that you would prefer, that certain truths, or a certain set of truths you have come to acknowledge, get voiced by people of whom you do not think highly, and ‘objectively’ serve the interests of…