
Luke Batterham
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£400 - £600
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'THIS WAS MR BLEANEY'S ROOM. HE STAYED/ THE WHOLE TIME HE WAS AT THE BODIES': this, one of Larkin's best-known poems, was first published in The Listener on 8 September 1955 and collected in The Whitsun Weddings, 1964. Larkin had previously used the name for a character (without Christian name or much else to distinguish him) in his first novel Jill of 1946. He made several recordings of the poem, and the adjective 'Bleaneyish' could be said to have entered the language. The typescript used for publication is in the New World Writing Archive at Yale University.