After a long association with the Bodleian, which began when he was an undergraduate at St John's College, Oxford, and continued throughout his creative and professional life, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) bequeathed to the Library a series of letters from four of his most valued correspondents: Kingsley Amis, Robert Conquest, Barbara Pym, and Monica Jones.

A lecturer in English at Leicester, Jones (1922-2001) met Larkin in 1946 when he was appointed Assistant Librarian at the then University College. The letters begin formally and sporadically in 1946, but by 1950 when Larkin was appointed Librarian at Queen's University Belfast, Jones was writing almost daily - a practice she sustained throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the years in which Larkin was writing some of his best poetry. The letters tail off in the 1970s, when Jones and Larkin began to communicate more by telephone.

As an academic with a professional interest in literature, Jones was able to critique Larkin's work and to offer practical advice as well as encouragement. The overwhelming burden of these letters, however, is personal.

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