A remarkable show of devotion

On 13 September 1964, at the age of 42, Philip Larkin began writing to his mother Eva (his ‘very dear old creature’) by taking stock:

Once again I am sitting in my bedroom in a patch of sunlight, embarking on my weekly task of ‘writing home’. I suppose I have been doing this now for 24 years! on and off, you know: well, I am happy to be able to do so, and I only hope my effusions are of some interest to you on all the different Monday mornings when they have arrived.

A great deal of what is characteristic about Letters Home is evident here. The sense of taking part in a ritual (‘Once again’); the pleasure in fulfilling a filial duty (‘happy to be able to do so’); the acknowledgement that it’s a bit of a chore (‘embarking on my weekly task’); the faint self-mockery (‘effusions’); and the air of being engaged in a performance (‘I am sitting in my bedroom in a patch of sunlight’).

These things aren’t in themselves remarkable, but what is astonishing is that Larkin maintained the balances of his ‘task’ for such a long time, and with such devotion. We learn from James Booth’s introduction to his selection from the correspondence that it falls into two main groups. One contains a little less than 100 letters and cards belonging to the period between Larkin’s departure from his home in Coventry to study in Oxford in 1940, and the death of his father in 1948. The second covers the period between his arrival to work in the library at Queen’s, Belfast in 1950, and his mother’s death aged 91 in 1977. For the first 22 years of this latter period Larkin wrote a letter to Eva every Sunday, and a card and/or another letter mid-week; for the last five years of her life, when her mind had wandered, he dropped her a line most days, and sometimes twice a day.

When Anthony Thwaite published Larkin’s Selected Letters in 1992, he baulked at the size of the correspondence with Eva and decided not to include any of it.