Philip Larkin

English poet. His father Sydney was City Treasurer of Coventry. Philip was educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry. By the age of 16 he was already having poetry published in the school magazine, The Coventrian. In 1940 he went to St. John's College, Oxford, to study English. On graduating (with first-class honours) in 1943 he became chief librarian of the municipal library in Wellington, Shropshire. In 1946 he began a job as assistant librarian at University College Leicester; in 1950 he was appointed one of two sub-librarians at Queen's University Belfast. In 1955 he became Librarian of the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull, a post he held until his death. His first volume of poetry, "The North Ship", met with minimal response when published in 1945. It was followed by two novels, "Jill" (1946) and "A Girl in Winter" (1947). It was his second book of poetry, "The Less Deceived" (1955), which established him as a poet. The subject-matter of Larkin's poetry is resolu