When Barbara Pym died in January 1980, this unpublished novel was found among her papers - written in 1963, at a time when her work was out of fashion. The publication after nineteen years of An Unsuitable Attachment therefore became an important literary event and a source of joy for her many fans. Set in St Basil`s, an undistinguished North London parish, An Unsuitable Attachment is indeed full of the high comedy for which she is famed. There is Mark Ainger, the vicar, who introduces his sermons with remarks like `Those of you who are familiar with the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. ` His wife Sophia with her cat, `I feel sometimes that I can`t reach Faustina as I`ve reached other cats. ` Rupert Stonebird, anthropologist and eligible bachelor. The well-bred Ianthe Broome who works at the library and forms an unsuitable attachment with a young man there. The sharp-tongue Mervyn Cantrell, chief librarian, who complains that `when books have things spilt on them it is always bottled sauce or gravy of the thickest and most repellent kind rather than something utterly exquisite and delicious. ` There is also Daisy Pettigrew, the vet`s sister, another obsessional cat person, and Sister Dew who bears a strong resemblance to Sister Blatt in Excellent Women. These and many more incidental characters come under Barbara Pym`s microscope. Phillip Larkin sums up what An Unsuitable Attachment means to Pym`s legion of admirers in his fascinating introduction, saying, `It is richly redolent of her unique talent...her followers will need no further recommendation. `

Product Description: A novel of two sisters in postwar England that lets you “step into the Jane Austen–like lives of Harriet and Belinda Bede” (The Christian Science Monitor). Belinda and Harriet Bede live together in a small English village. Shy, sensible Belinda has been secretly in love with Henry Hoccleve—the poetry-spouting, married archdeacon of their church—for thirty years...read more

Decorous flirtations and suppressed emotions characterize the several near romances of Wilmet Forsyth--a young woman bored by her civil-servant husband--and the various occasions of romantic error that touch upon her life

A tale of a woman’s romantic entanglements with two anthropologists—and the odd mating habits of humans—from the author of Jane and Prudence. Catherine Oliphant writes for women’s magazines and lives comfortably with anthropologist Tom Mallow—although she’s starting to wonder if they’ll ever get married. Then Tom drops his bombshell: He’s leaving her for a nineteen-year-old student.   Though stunned by Tom’s betrayal, Catherine quickly becomes fascinated by another anthropologist, Alaric Lydgate, a reclusive eccentric recently returned from Africa. As Catherine starts to weigh her options, she must figure out who she is and what she really wants.   With a lively cast of characters and a witty look at the insular world of academia, this novel from the much-loved author of Excellent Women and other modern classics is filled with poignant, playful observations about the traits that separate us from our anthropological forebears—far fewer than we may imagine.  

A stylish novel of English life and manners recounts the friendship between a clergyman's middle-aged wife and a romantic young working woman

Dulcie Mainwaring and fellow researcher Viola Dace travel to the West Country seacoast and discover the secrets of the Forbes clan

Product Description: Book annotation not available for this title.Title: Jane y Prudence/ Jane and PrudenceAuthor: Pym, BarbaraPublisher: Random House MondadoriPublication Date: 2009/05/30Number of Pages: 330Binding Type: HARDCOVERLibrary of Congress:

Product Description: This novel originally called Adam and Cassandra was written in 1936 about the time of SOME TAME GAZELLE, when Pym was in her 20's. CIVIL TO STRANGERS takes place in small Shropshire village. The charm of Budapest and a Hungarian by the name of Stefan Tilos find there way into this quiet novel...read more

A subtle comedy about life and its complications chronicles the experiences of spinster Mildred Lathbury, who tends to become involved in other people's affairs, set in England during the 1950s. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

Aging and fastidious, Leonora bypasses her suitor, a widowed antiques dealer, in favor of James, his twenty-four-year-old nephew, and is challenged by an impassioned woman named Phoebe and Ned, an American with a sexual hold on the malleable James. Reprint.

Product Description: This is the story of four people in late middle-age - Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia - whose chief point of contact is that they work in the same office and they suffer the same problem - loneliness. Lovingly, poignantly, satirically and with much humour, Pym conducts us through their small lives and the facade they erect to defend themselves against the outside world...read more

A novel featuring a pair of farcical romances captures early versions of the author's famous clergymen and excellent women, the original Miss Doggett and Jessie Morrow from Jane and Prudence, and a distinctly Oxford cast of characters

Product Description: In A FEW GREEN LEAVES the author combines the rural settings of her earliest novels with many of the themes- and even some of the characters- of her later ones. Switching points of view among many characters, she builds with accumulating effect the picture of life in a town forgotten by time yet affected dramatically by it...read more

Product Description: Barbara Pym’s early novel takes us into 1950s England, as seen through the funny, engaging, yearning eyes of a restless housewifeWilmet Forsyth is bored. Bored with the everyday routine of her life. Bored with teatimes filled with local gossip...read more

Product Description: Caro is the wife of Dr. Alan Grimstone, a lecturer at a provincial university in a West Country town in England. She knows her circle believes that she should be doing more with her life. She is the mother of a young daughter but relieved to be able to leave the girl in the care of an au pair...read more

A collection featuring the complete novel 'Civil to Strangers,' as well as four short stories, sections of three unpublished novels, and an autobiographical essay

Caroline Grimstone, the bored young wife of an ambitious anthropologist, finds a cure for her tedium in reading to the elderly and becoming a party to her husband's purloining of an important manuscript

A spinster living in England in the 1950s continually becomes involved in other people's affairs in this subtle comedy about life and its complications

Like new First Edition, First Printing (stated and full number line), Dutton 1984; a small manufacturer's crease to the front flap - GIFT QUALITY. The letters and diaries of an exceptional author.