Country United Kingdom Publisher Faber and Faber Pages 240 Originally published 2003 Editor Anthony Thwaite Genre Poetry | Language English Publication date 1988, 2003 ISBN 978-0-571-21654-3 Page count 240 | |
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Preceded by Collected Poems – 1988 edition Similar Philip Larkin books, Poetry books | ||
Collected Poems is a posthumous collection of all of Philip Larkin's published poetry. It is edited by Anthony Thwaite and published by Faber and Faber, who released two notably different editions in 1988 and 2003, the first of which also includes previously unpublished work. Both editions contain the contents of Larkin's collections The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows, plus other material.
Contents
History
For the 1988 edition, editor Anthony Thwaite included all of Philip Larkin's published poetry as well as unpublished and incomplete work. Thwaite organized the poems in chronological order, meaning that poems from Larkin's four collections, his uncollected poems, and his unpublished work are interspersed throughout according to their date of composition. Some critics considered the arrangement eccentric.
In 2003, Thwaite prepared a new edition with a different arrangement. It does not contain the vast volume of unpublished and incomplete work included in the 1988 edition, and orders the published poems in Larkin's preferred arrangement, separating them according to his four published collections, The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows. Additionally, it includes two appendices containing all the other poems Larkin published.
Appendices
The 2003 edition includes Larkin's uncollected poems in two appendices. The first appendix contains poems published in magazines and journals before 1972, but not subsequently collected by Larkin. The contents of the privately printed XX Poems (1951) are deemed to be in this category.
[Ellipsis (...) indicates first line of an untitled poem]The second appendix contains those poems published after High Windows, Larkin's final volume.