Both editions include the contents of Larkin's collections The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows, plus other material.

For the 1988 edition, editor Anthony Thwaite included all of Philip Larkin's published poetry as well as unpublished and incomplete work.

Thwaite divided the book into two sections: what he considered the mature (post war) poetry, 1946 - 1983, and juvenilia, 1938 - 1945.

Controversially Larkin's first collection 'The North Ship' (32 poems) fell in the latter section along with other poems the author wrote at University, or indeed school, a total of 38 uncollected, pieces 22 unpublished from 1938 to 1945, the published material here appearing in both public publications (The Listener, Poetry from Oxford in Wartime) and privately circulated college and university magazines.

He also corrected typos and added back published poem titles which Larkin had later reconsidered.