Philip Larkin – Jill

Jill   by Philip Larkin

In Larkins early novel, John Kemp, “having never been south of Crewe”, takes a place at Oxford University, where he is both attracted and bemused by the ways of the privileged middle-class students he meets there, suffers a frustrating experience of romantic infatuation. This “juvenile indiscretion”, as it author later described it, offers a fascinating picture of a university city during wartime, whilst its measured tone, quiet realism and shrewd observation make it a fascinating harbinger of the great poetry to come.