Letters from Philip Larkin and Stevie Smith written or given to Anthony and Ann Thwaite

Item author: Philip Larkin and Stevie Smith
Item date: 1956 - 85
Grant Value: £3,000
Item cost: £8,420
Item date acquired: 2012
Item institution: Hull University Archives, Hull History Centre
Town/City: Hull
County: Yorkshire

Autograph Letter, Autograph Postcard, eight Typed Letters and two Christmas cards, all signed, Hull and University of Hull, 21 April 1956 to 6 February 1985, various sizes, 13 pages (excluding the Christmas cards), some with envelopes, to Anthony Thwaite.  Some of these letters appear in Thwaite’s edition of Selected Letters, others are unpublished and were not to hand when the bulk of Larkin’s letters to Thwaite were acquired in 1992 by the University of Hull.

This correspondence records a literary friendship between Larkin and the Thwaites which spanned four decades.

In the case of Stevie Smith, there are few of her letters or other papers surviving in UK institutions, so additions, however small in number, are significant. The letters here are of interest because of the way in which Stevie Smith talks about poems she has sent and reveal her views of herself.  

Item Provenance
Bertram Rota