Philip Larkin (1922−1985) was born in Coventry in the family of Sydney and Eva Larkin. He attended the City’s King Henry VIII School between 1930 and 1940. He started writing contributing to the school magazine. His first poem Ultimatum was published in the national Weekly Listener in 1940. Three other poems A Stone Church Damaged by a Bomb, Mythological Introduction, and / Dreamed of an Out-thrust Arm of Land appeared in 1943 in the collection Oxford Poetry (1942−1943). Then, he was educated at St John’s College in Oxford where his friends were Kingsley Amis and Bruce Montgomery. He graduated in 1943 with a First Class Honour in English and soon was appointed Librarian at Wellington where he studied to qualify as a professional librarian and continued writing poetry which in 1945 he included in the collection The North Ship.
While working in Belfast as Sub-Librarian at Queen’s University Larkin privately published a small collection of poetry XX Poems. It was followed by his next collection The Less Deceived (1955). The collection won him reputation of one of the foremost figures in the XXth century poetry.
In 1964 Larkin published the collection of poems The Whitsun Weddings which was well received, widely acclaimed, and brought him the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. His next collection High Windows was published in 1974 and it confirmed Larkin as one of the finest poets in English literary history.
Philip Larkin is also known as a prose writer − a novelist and essayist. His two novels Jill and A Girl in Winter came out in succession in 1946 and 1947 respectively. His reviews of jazz recordings which he wrote for the Daily Telegraph were published in 1970 under the title All What Jazz: a Record Diary 1961−1968. He also edited the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse which was published in 1973.
Philip Larkin received many awards and prizes and he had been an Honorary Fellow of the Library Association and was made a Professor of the University of Hull. He was awarded the Order of the Companion of Honour but was unable to attend the ceremony at Buckingham Palace because of serious illness.
Philip Larkin died of cancer at the age of 63 on December 2, 1985.