The Book History Reader (review)

Abstract

commentary assures that Purdy’s book will continue to be a relevant source of Hardy scholarship for years to come. Bloomfield’s second revised and enlarged edition of his bibliography, on the other hand, remains a work in progress. Scholars will notice that the only primary material selected and published by Larkin himself after the appearance of the first edition of the bibliography in 1979 was Required Writing, a selection of Larkin’s occasional prose. Of course, Bloomfield’s book is a compelling testament to the notion that there is more to an author’s life than whatever literary remains have been stamped as official and left behind. As Purdy showed, there is the life lived, the history of the person that emerges in drafts, correspondence, diaries, notes, and even personal effects. This new edition of Bloomfield’s book only covers materials appearing through 1994, while the study of Larkin and his work has exploded since that time. In a word, there is much more to be said about Larkin. Bloomfield and Pettit both argue convincingly that authors continue to live through the critical reading and appreciation of their work, which amounts to, perhaps surprisingly (as was the case for Larkin), much more than the sum of the words they committed to paper while they lived.