‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure’ – Jilly Cooper, author of Rivals‘Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.’The lives of Humphrey and James Boyce, a seasoned antique dealer and his good-looking nephew, are changed for ever when the elegant Leonora Eyre glides into their bustling Bond Street salesroom, delicate as porcelain, coo...

**‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure’ - Jilly Cooper‘I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym’ - Richard Osman**‘Could one write a book based on one’s diaries over thirty years? I certainly have enough material,’ wroteBarbara Pym. This book, selected from the diaries, notebooks and letters of this much-loved novelist to form a continuous narrative, is indeed a unique autobiography, providing a priv...

‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure’ - Jilly Cooper, author of The Rutshire Chronicles series‘I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym’ - Richard Osman, author of The Thrusday Murder ClubBarbara Pym was an incomparable chronicler of ordinary, quiet lives. With warmth, humour, precision and great vividness, she gave her best characters an independent life we recogn...

‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure.' Jilly Cooper‘Could one write a book based on one’s diaries over thirty years? I certainly have enough material,’ wrote Barbara Pym. This book, selected from the diaries, notebooks and letters of this much loved novelist to form a continuous narrative, is indeed a unique autobiography, providing a privileged insight into a writer’s mind.Phili...

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 entire work. Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a spinster in the England of the 1950s, one of those 'excellent women' who tend to get involved in other p...

INTRODUCED BY ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMANMildred Lathbury is one of those excellent women who are often taken for granted. She is a godsend, 'capable of dealing with most of the stock situations or even the great moments of life - birth, marriage, death, the successful jumble sale, the garden fête spoilt by bad weather'. Her glamorous new neighbours, the Napiers, seem to be facing a marital crisis. On...

INTRODUCED BY SALLEY VICKERS'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN'She is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heart-breaking silliness of everyday life' ANNE TYLERCatherine Oliphant is a writer and lives with handsome anthropologist Tom Mallow. Their relationship runs into trouble when he begins a romance with student Deirdre Swann, so Catherine turns her attention...

'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure.' Jilly Cooper‘The day comes in the life of every single man living alone when he must give a dinner party.’The parish of St Basil, on the fringes of North Kensington, is all of a flutter due to the arrival of Rupert Stonebird, a most eligible bachelor, in t...

‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure.' Jilly CooperBetween the amorous antique dealer Humphrey and his good-looking nephew James glides the magnificent Leonora, delicate as porcelain, cool as ice. Can she keep James in her thrall? Or will he be taken from her by a lover, like Phoebe . . . or Ned, the wicked American?'A highly distinctive and - ultimately - charitable novel' F...

INTRODUCED BY MAVIS CHEEK'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman'She is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life' Anne TylerTogether yet alone, the Misses Bede occupy the central crossroads of parish life. Harriet, plump, elegant and jolly, likes nothing better than to make a fuss of new curates, secure in the knowledge that Count Ricardo Bianco will propose to he...

BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHORWITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY CLARE CHAMBERS'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN'My favourite writer . . . I pick up her books with joy, as though I were meeting an old, dear friend' JILLY COOPER'The subtlest of her books . . . the sparkle on first acquaintance has been succeeded by the deeper brilliance of established art' PHILI...

**Darkly funny and full of stubborn optimism, Quartet in Autumn is a classic. Showing Barbara Pym at her very best, it portrays the strange and wonderful quirks of everyday life.‘Spectacular’ –** The Sunday Times‘Quartet in Autumn is immeasurably her finest work of fiction’ – Evening Standard‘Barbara Pym has a sharp eye for the exact nuances of social behaviour’ – The TimesIn 1970s...