Book of the week: Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me

John Sutherland’s ‘eye-opening’ book about the poet and his long-term girlfriend

Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me by John Sutherland

The story of Philip Larkin has been told many times, said John Carey in The Sunday Times. John Sutherland’s new book, however, is “singular” in focusing on the poet’s long-term girlfriend, Monica Jones. The pair met at Leicester University in the mid-1940s. She was a young lecturer; he, the assistant librarian. They maintained their relationship for the next four decades, though for most of that time Larkin was living in Hull, and was having relationships with other women. He carefully rationed their time together: “they had a fortnight’s holiday each summer, an annual visit to some great cathedral, and three days watching a Test match at Lord’s”.

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