Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was an English novelist. In the 1950s she published a series of social comedies, of which the best known are Excellent Women and A Glass of Blessings . In 1977 her career was revived when the critic Lord David Cecil and the poet Philip Larkin both nominated her as the most under-rated writer of the century. Her novel Quartet in Autumn was nominated for the Booker Prize that year, and she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Wikipedia
Barbara Pym book Less than Angels
Less than Angels (1955), chapter 9
“She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.”
Barbara Pym book Quartet in Autumn
Source: Quartet in Autumn
Jane and Prudence (1953), chapter 7
Barbara Pym book Some Tame Gazelle
Some Tame Gazelle (1950), chapter 1, opening sentence
