Barbara Pym

Excellent Women is probably the most famous of Barbara Pym's novels. The acclaim a few years ago for this early comic novel, which was hailed by Lord David Cecil as one of 'the finest examples of high comedy to have appeared in England during the past seventy-five years,' helped launch the rediscovery of the author's …

Quartet in Autumn is a novel by British novelist Barbara Pym, first published in 1977. It was highly praised and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the top literary prize in the UK. This was considered a comeback novel for Pym; she had fallen out of favor as styles changed, and her work had been rejected by publishers …

This early novel by Barbara Pym captures the charm and folly of English middle-class life. The two title characters share a devoted friendship based on memories of Oxford school days, poetry and their neighbors' private affairs- all discussed over leisurely lunches. And they share a common goal: finding a suitable …

Some Tame Gazelle is Barbara Pym's first novel, originally published in 1950. It is considered a remarkable first novel, because of the way in which the youthful Pym - who began the book while a student at Oxford before the Second World War - imagined herself into the situation of a middle-aged spinster, living with …

This is a wonderfully accomplished farce beginning with the joke of using her own name in the title (Barbara Mary Crampton Pym). From that point she sails off into a wickedly comedic farce, focusing- in recognizingly "Pym" fashion- on the unsuitable romantic entanglements of a curate and a pretty young girl, both of …

Three lonely people come together in this poignant, witty novel of star-crossed romance from the New York Times–bestselling author of Jane and Prudence.After being jilted by her fiancé, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola …

The Sweet Dove Died is a novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1978. The title is a quotation from a poem, "I Had a Dove", by John Keats. The novel was begun during the 1960s, after Pym's previous novel, An Unsuitable Attachment, had been rejected by several publishers. The Sweet Dove Died was also rejected, and …

An Unsuitable Attachment is a novel by Barbara Pym, written in 1963 and published posthumously in 1982. This novel is notable as being the first of Pym's novels to be rejected by publishers after she had established herself as a novelist. The book was originally rejected by Cape, who had published Pym's first six …

A Glass of Blessings is a novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1958. The title is taken from the poem The Pulley by George Herbert.