Biography - Philip Larkin (1922-85).

... Biography Philip Larkin (1922-85) Photograph by Philip Sayer. From the cover of Required Writing. Philip Arthur Larkin was born on August 9, 1922, in Coventry. He was the second child, and only son, of Sydney and Eva Larkin. Sydney Larkin was City Treasurer between the years 1922-44. Larkin's sister, some ten years his senior, was called Catherine, but was known as Kitty. He attended the City's King Henry VIII School between 1930 and 1940, and made regular contributions to the school magazine, The Coventrian, which, between 1939 and 1940, he also helped to edit . After leaving King Henry VIII, he went to St. John's College, Oxford, and despite the war (Larkin had failed his army medical because of his poor eyesight), was able to complete his degree without interruption, graduating in 1943 with a First Class Honours in English. His closest friends at Oxford were Kingsley Amis and Bruce Montgomery. The

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