The first published collection of the selected letters of the late Makar, Edwin Morgan, was launched last night.

Edwin Morgan, The Midnight Letterbox: Selected Correspondence, 1950 - 2010, is being published by Carcanet Press.

The selected correspondence is taken from the poet's papers, which were gifted to Glasgow University.

They include biographical material, scrapbooks, drafts of poems and translations from 1936 to 2005.

It also includes reviews, essays and talks from 1947 to 2003, and subjects relating to radio and television, theatre projects , poetry readings and tours.

The book, launched in Glasgow, has been collated from more than 280 boxes of material, and our held at the university's Special Collections department.

More than 90 of these boxes contain correspondence from 1946 to 2009.

Morgan, who died in 2010 at the age of 90, worked for the majority of his career, both as student and teacher, at the university and the institution was the venue for the book's official launch.

Among the selected letters are letters to Allen Ginsberg and TS Eliot, a 1952 letter to the publisher of his translation of Beowulf, a description of watching the first moon landing in July 1969 and a 2003 letter on why poetry is important to him.

Morgan was a professor of English at the university from 1975 to 1980.

Later he was made Poet Laureate for Glasgow, 1999 to 2005, and in February 2004 he was appointed as the first "Scots Makar" or National Poet, by Scotland's First Minister.

The Selected Correspondence has been edited by Professor James McGonigal and Dr John Coyle, from the University of Glasgow's School of Critical Studies.

Dr Coyle said: "Edwin Morgan was a teacher and, in selecting from his letters, we were continually amazed at his life beyond the lectern.

"The letters reveal the character of the man and poet - they are lively, acute, astringent, serious and playful, and the range of moods and contexts in which he wrote is astonishing.

"Above all what emerges is his creativity and responsiveness to life; this also includes his political views, humanely expressed.

"This collection is only a selection and a fraction of the riches to be found in the Edwin Morgan Papers in the department of Special Collections in the University of Glasgow Library. We hope that others will be drawn to explore further."