Poet's hidden letter to go under the hammer

YOUR WEEKLY ROUND-UP OF THE REGION'S LEADING AUCTIONEERS

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A LETTER written by the great Hull University librarian-poet Philip Larkin just a few weeks before his death is to go under the hammer in an auction in North Lincolnshire on Thursday after lying hidden away in the drawer of an old desk for almost half a century.

Ironically the poet famed for melancholic poetry on themes of sadness, loss and failure, was feeling relatively chipper after major surgery in Hull's Nuffield Hospital, writing with flashes of humour, seemingly unaware of the tragic situation he was facing.

The handwritten letter was sent to Marie Cooper, the secretary of the Hull University Vice-Chancellor Sir William Taylor, on July 16, 1985, just four weeks after Larkin had undergone an operation for oesophageal cancer. That operation revealed that the cancer had spread and was inoperable but there is no mention of that in the letter.