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‘It will, I hope, still qualify for the indulgence traditionally extended to juvenilia,’ wrote Philip Larkin, almost twenty years after the publication of his first novel. But Jill, with its exact evocation of place – Oxford in 1940 – and astute insight into character, emotions and social nuance, requires no such indulgence. It is a classic of its time, and shows many of the qualities that were later to distinguish Larkin’s great, mature poetry.
‘Jill is, in a sense, a kind of cryptic manifesto. It is a novel about writing, about discovering a literary personality, and about the sorts of consolation that art can provide.’ Andrew Motion
Philip Larkin was an English novelist, librarian and celebrated poet, who has been awarded numerous honours including the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Born in Coventry in 1922, he was educated at King Henry VIII School and Oxford University. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by The Less Deceived (1955), The Whitsun Weddings…
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In the Philip Larkin's centenary year, we republish an article remembering him by autobiographer and publisher Jean Hartley.