There is no way to avoid saying this. No one would have written a biography of Monica Jones if she hadn’t been the long-time friend, some-time lover, and correspondent for nearly four decades of Philip Larkin. She had a largely undistinguished career as a university teacher. She had few friends and was often disliked by colleagues and acquaintances. She was a racist and anti-Semite. Her life was blighted by bitterness, loneliness, and alcoholism. And yet from 1946 to 1985, Monica Jones was arguably closer than anyone to one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. She was the primary beneficiary of Larkin’s will and received on his death all his manuscripts and letters (many of which she destroyed).

John Sutherland, her biographer and one of the UK’s most distinguished literary scholars and critics, was one of Monica’s students in Leicester from 1960 and became her friend. That last part might mystify many readers because, on the evidence of this book, Monica was thoroughly and consistently horrible. But Larkin may have been even worse. I have read at least one biography of him, as well as collections of letters he wrote, not just to Monica Jones but also to his coterie of male friends like Kingsley Amis, so the nastier sides of his personality were familiar enough to me. Sutherland, however, has deepened my dislike of Larkin the man by filling out what we know about his stunted and manipulative personality, his misogyny, and his deceit.

Larkin and Jones might have been well matched in so many ways, but they were very bad for one another. He was a blight on her life for decades. She, though helpful to his poetic output in the early years, was treated appallingly, but lacking the self-confidence to break free from a toxic and deeply damaging relationship she was the co-creator of her own misery.