Book of the Week - Letters to Monica - Episode 5

Philip Larkin's Letters to Monica span the forty years of their relationship from 1946 when they met, until Larkin's death in 1985. They only came to light after Monica Jones died in 2001, when nearly two thousand letters were discovered in Larkin's house in Hull. This never previously published correspondence, edited by Anthony Thwaite, offers a unique insight into Larkin's most intimate thoughts. Episode 5: Larkin looks back at his life leading up to his fiftieth birthday and despite the success of The Whitsun Weddings, wonders if he has achieved all that he set out to. Anthony Thwaite concludes the episode. Read by Hugh Bonneville, who recently appeared in Downton Abbey and BBC TV's The Silence and played Larkin in Love Again on BBC 4. In Episode 5, the letters are concluded with comment from Anthony Thwaite, a close friend of Larkin and the editor of the collection Letters to Monica. The abridger is Miranda Davies and the producer Lucy Collingwood.