I listened as they were broadcast, smiling and sniffling and knowing that I will eventually buy the book (though it'll have to be the paperback and probably via eBay).
Sniffling, I thought of these lines from Oscar Wilde's sonnet on the sale by auction of Keats's love letters:
I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.
Smiling, I thought how the same sonnet in its entirety would have made Larkin cringe.
I get the impression that Larkin is not much regarded in America. Is this so?
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