The Adventures Of Miss Barbara Pym
Paula Byrne William Collins, £25
Barbara Pym was one of the wittiest novelists of her time, admired for her wry humour, elegant writing and shrewd observations.
Her novels explored everything from unrequited passion to the loneliness of old age.
This outstanding new biography, the first to draw on journals Pym bequeathed to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, reveals what an extraordinary woman she was.
As a student at Oxford in the 1930s, when male students outnumbered women by 10 to one and female undergraduates were only permitted to receive “gentlemen friends not related to them” on Tuesday afternoons, she attracted countless admirers with her originality and quick wit.
Biographer Paula Byrne describes Pym as “a sexually liberated woman” who was ahead of her time but drawn to unattainable men who treated her badly.
Like her literary heroine Jane Austen, she never married or had children.
Pym spent time in Nazi Germany and embarked on a short-lived relationship with an SS officer. Byrne writes: “Later, of course, Pym recanted and was deeply ashamed of her past.”
After war broke out she worked on the home front, helping air-raid casualties, and served in the Wrens. Then she moved to London and worked at the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures for more than 25 years.
In the midst of all this, Pym somehow found time to write a string of novels, including Some Tame Gazelle and A Glass Of Blessings.
They were well received – John Betjeman called Excellent Women “a perfect book” – but it was decades before she received the recognition she deserved. Much to her fury, she was dropped by her publisher in the 1960s,
and feared her writing career was over for good, though she never stopped writing.
Everything changed in 1977 when a magazine asked writers and critics to name the most underrated authors of the past 75 years. Philip Larkin chose Pym. “She has a unique eye and ear for the small poignancies and comedies of everyday life,” he wrote.
The literary world instantly took notice. A publisher snapped up two novels and interviewers beat a path to her door. Pym was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
This is literary biography at its best – meticulously researched, affectionate and fascinating in equal measure. A must-read for Pym fans, it will also encourage a new generation to discover her work.