Dear Philip, Dear Kingsley: The Letters of Phillip Larkin & Kingsley Amis

Here we have readings of selected correspondence between the poet Philip Larkin (played by Alan Bennett) and the writer Kingsley Amis (played by Robert Hardy) for your listening pleasure. A meeting at Oxford University during World War II signalled the beginning of a lifelong friendship between two outstanding contributors to 20th century English literature: Philip Larkin, poet, and Kingsley Amis, the prolific novelist.

Selected from correspondence written between 1943 and 1985, these letters offer an entertaining and illuminating insight into the prejudices, exasperations and in-jokes of two literary greats. A linking commentary complements the writers' own words as they relate events in their personal lives, report on their work in progress, and generally rail against the modem world.