First edition. 4to. Original stapled pink paper wrappers with the titles printed in black on upper wrapper. A near fine copy, clean with just some light strips of toning to the edges. Housed in custom made, cloth clamshell box.

XX Poems is Larkin's second book of poems. It breaks free from the Yeatsian-pastiches of The North Ship to mark his arrival into poetic maturity. The book was conceived in October 1950, the month he arrived in Belfast to take the post of librarian at Queen's University. In 1948 he had tried to get a collection of poems titled In The Grip Of Light published, but was faced with rejection wherever he sent it. Fearing a repeat of this he decided to publish a new collection himself under the title XX Poems "as free from offence as I can manage, and with a slight undercurrent of Guinness double X and Ezra Pound's Cantos" (Letter to Monica Jones, 14th February 1951).
He entrusted the printing to one Mr Hennessy at the local printers Carswells, and after correcting the proofs on April 18th, the 100 copies arrived with Larkin on April 27th 1951.
It is Larkin's rarest book. One of 100 copies privately printed for Larkin while he was living in Belfast, though the infrequency with which one sees it in commerce suggest a much smaller number remain extant. This may be put down to an oft-quoted anecdote abut how, emulating Wordsworth who sent copies of Lyrical Ballads to various literary personages in 1798, Larkin decided to send copies of XX Poems to eminent figures in the hope some would review it. He had, however, failed to account for recent changes in postal prices, which lead to the delivery of many unsolicited copies being refused. Only one individual, Charles Madge, acknowledged receipt, and he passed it onto D.J.Enright who wrote the only review the book received for the Month in November 1951.
"Seldom has such great poetry been ignored on its first appearance" - James Booth (Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love).

Stock ID: 43104