Two literary romantic novels from the New York Times–bestselling author of Excellent Women.Less Than Angels: In a story that explores the mating habits of humans, magazine writer Catherine Oliphant lives comfortably with anthropologist Tom Mallow—until he announces he's leaving her for a nineteen-year-old student. Though stunned by the betrayal, Catherine becomes fascinated by another anthropologist: a reclusive eccentric recently returne...

Three comedies of manners set in postwar England by the New York Times–bestselling author of Excellent Women and "the rarest of treasures" (Anne Tyler).Often characterized as the twentieth-century literary heiress to Jane Austen, and heralded by Phillip Larkin as "the most underrated novelist of the century," Barbara Pym explored female friendship and the quiet yearnings of British middle-class life—not the least of which, unrequited love—with sha...

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 fascinate...

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. Belinda's much more confident, forthright younger sister Harriet, meanwhile, is ardently pursued...

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 Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. The fact that Aylw...

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. Bored with her husband, Rodney, a civil servant who dotes on her. But on her thirty-third birthday, Wilmet's conventional life takes a turn when she runs into the handsome brother of her close friend.Attractive and en...

The author of Excellent Women explores female friendship and the quiet yearnings of British middle-class life—a literary delight for fans of Jane Austen.Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates were close friends at Oxford University, but now live very different lives. Forty-one-year-old Jane lives in the country, is married to a vicar, has a daughter she adores, and lives a very proper life in a very proper English parish. Prudence, a year shy of thirty, lives i...

The final novel by the famed British novelist Barbara Pym—a characteristically witty story about an academic who becomes enmeshed in the eccentric village life that she means to study.Completed barely two months before her death, A Few Green Leaves was Barbara Pym’s last novel, and is an acutely observed and wry portrait of an English village in the 1970s. The book follows Emma Howick, an academic in her mid-thirties, who moves to her mother’s cottage in a...

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...

‘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...

'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 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...