Poet who talked in his letters

THE poet, Louis MacNeice died suddenly in 1963 of viral pneumonia, contracted while recording sound effects in an underground cave in Yorkshire for his last radio play, Persons from Porlock.

He was 56. In the very last letter he wrote, on August 26, just 24 hours before his death, he complains that 10 days in bed, “with bronchitis etcetera”, have prevented him taking a planned trip to Ireland, but he still hoped to make a visit in September: “I have a great desire to be in on the Oyster Festival at Clarinbridge, Co Galway.”

MacNeice left an unfinished memoir, The Strings are False. In 1995 a highly acclaimed biography by Jon Stallworthy was published. The centenary of his birth was marked in 2007 by a new edition of his poems. Now, 47 years after his death, this selection of his letters is presented in a substantial volume running to 768 pages, edited by Jonathan Allison.