THE WHITSUN WEDDINGS

The most cherished of poets, Philip Larkin is a writer with an unrivalled ability to touch readers with his evocations of English life. The Whitsun Weddings, his first volume with Faber and Faber, was published in 1964. This Faber Modern Classics edition includes a foreword by Alan Johnson MP. ''Larkin, with his (in the best sense) provincial eye, and his unparalleled ear, is the supreme writer of post-war England.'' Telegraph ''Larkin''s originality is palpable . . . Who else uses an essentially conversational idiom to achieve such a variety of emotional effects? Who else takes us, and takes us so often, from sunlit levity to mellifluous gloom? And let it be emphasised that Larkin is never ''depressing''.'' Martin Amis