THE LESS DECEIVED

First edition, first printing, first state, with a flat spine (thanks to a "strip of stiffening mull" according to Bloomfield), the misprint 'floor' for 'sea' on p. 38, and list of subscribers at the back. Original green cloth lettered in gilt (more accurately copper) to the spine, in the dustwrapper. A very near fine copy, the binding square, firm and sharp, the contents bright and clean throughout. Faint spotting to the upper edge of the page block. In the sharp and clean dustwrapper, a touch of faded to the spine and lightly rubbed to spine tips. Unclipped and correctly priced 6 /– net to the front flap. An uncommonly fine example of Larkin's breakthrough collection.

In 1950, Larkin left his job as Assistant Librarian at the University College of Leicester to take up the post of sub-librarian at Queen's University in Belfast. The move, extreme by Larkin's cautious standards, would prove unexpectedly beneficial for his writing: "It was Belfast", Anthony Thwaite writes, "that saw [Larkin's] breakthrough as a poet" 'XX Poems', a self-published chapbook, appeared in 1951, and by early 1955 there was enough work for a full-length collection provisionally titled 'Various Poems'. Around this time, he was approached by George and Jean Hartley, husband and wife editors of the Hull-based poetry journal Listen, to contribute a collection to launch their new poetry imprint. Various Poems became The Less Deceived (the original title for the poem 'Deceptions') and issued to subscribers of The Marvell Press – named for another great Hull-based poet – in November 1955. A brief mention in a review of the year's literature in The Times prompted the rapid sale of what remained of the first, subscription, issue of 300 copies (with flat spines and a misprint). A further 400 copies were bound up (now with rounded spines) but all stock had sold out by April 1956. 'The Less Deceived', the volume which first revealed the voice we now recognise as Larkin's own, followed The North Ship issued a decade earlier, and initiated a pattern of delivering a slim volume every ten years. It includes, among much else, 'Church Going', 'Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album', 'At Grass', and 'Toads', the latter the poet's memorable metaphor for the burdens of nine-to-five employment. Asked by Robert Phillips how he arrived at the image of a toad, Larkin replied, simply, "Sheer genius". (Bloomfield A6 (a)).