For a supposedly private man, Philip Larkin was punctilious about his public image, as a recent “Commentary” in the Times Literary Supplement (April 3, 2009) recalls: the cub reporter for the Times Educational Supplement sent to interview the barely known poet in 1956 found the shy librarian could be a demanding subject. He generously agreed to let Larkin vet the piece, which Larkin virtually rewrote. Such punctiliousness one can imagine of a poet so scrupulous and demanding of both himself and his work and it has given rise to the many myths about him that still abound. These were summed up by remarks later made in the TLS that the poet “has refused almost all invitations to judge, recite, review, lecture, pontificate, or to be interviewed.”

Perhaps the only element of truth here is that Larkin did not go in for public speaking—for judge, review, and give interviews he did, as well as recite, but not for a live audience. Larkin ascribed his reluctance to speak in public to a childhood stammer, which he overcame in adulthood; later in life, it was hearing difficulties. It was also the former speech problem that he claimed was responsible for his choice of career as a librarian rather than an academic or journalist. Yet in his vital role as a technocrat in the construction of the new library building for the University of Hull during the great years of expansion in higher education, he