When I was a child, I thought, Casually, that solitude Never needed to be sought. Something everybody had, Like nakedness, it lay at hand, Not specially right or specially wrong, A plentiful and obvious thing Not at all hard to understand. Then, after twenty, it became At once more difficult to get And more desired -- though all the same More undesirable; for what You are alone has, to achieve The rank of fact, to be expressed In terms of others, or it's just A compensating make-believe. Much better stay in company! To love you must have someone else, Giving requires a legatee, Good neighbours need whole parishfuls Of folk to do it on -- in short, Our virtues are all social; if, Deprived of solitude, you chafe, It's clear you're not the virtuous sort. Viciously, then, I lock my door. The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside Ushers in evening rain. Once more Uncontradicting solitude Supports me on its giant palm; And like a sea-anemone Or simple snail, there cautiously Unfolds, emerges, what I am." (Best Company)

The view that Larkin is not a nihilist or pessimist but actually displays optimism in his works is certainly not universally endorsed but Chatterjee's lengthy study suggests the degree to which old stereotypes of Larkin are now being transcended. On the other hand the revelations were dismissed by the novelist Martin Amis in The War Against Cliché arguing that the letters in particular show nothing more than a tendency for Larkin to tailor his words according to the recipient. Brett who was chairman of the library committee who appointed him and friend until Larkin's death wrote "At first I was impressed with the time he spent in his office arriving early and leaving late.

Lisa Jardine called him a "casual habitual racist and an easy misogynist" but the academic John Osborne argued in 2008 that "the worst that anyone has discovered about Larkin are some crass letters and a taste for porn softer than what passes for mainstream entertainment". Despite the controversy Larkin was chosen in a 2003 Poetry Book Society survey almost two decades after his death as Britain's best-loved poet of the previous 50 years and in 2008 The Times named him Britain's greatest post-war writer. After graduating from Oxford in 1943 with a first in English language and literature Larkin became a librarian.