Barbara Pym – författare

Två moderna klassiker av en efterkrigstidens Jane Austen

»Det är lätt att fastna för Pyms karaktäristiska sätt att se på tillvaron, för den pymska ironiska blicken, med sina skarpsynta iakttagelser. Även om mörkret lurar i bakgrunden, utgör romanerna en mycket roande och förunderligt trösterik läsning.« Ingrid Löfgren, Dagens bok

Mildred Lathbury är en av många »förträffliga kvinnor«. Hon är i trettioårsåldern, ogift, intelligent och självständig, »i stånd att klara upp de flesta situationer här i livet - födelse, giftermål, död, framgångsrika loppmarknader, trädgårdsfester som regnade bort...« Hennes nya glamourösa grannar, herr och fru Napier, genomlever en äktenskapskris, och Mildred blir till sin förvåning indragen i intriger som är betydligt svårare att hantera. I 1970-talets London förenas fyra ogifta kontorsarbetare - två kvinnor och två män - av sin isolering. De närmar sig pensionsåldern och är framför allt kollegor, inte vänner. Men när deras olika framtidsplaner går i stöpet kommer de närmare varandra - och dolda romantiska intressen kommer till ytan. Barbara Pym brukar kallas en modern Jane Austen. Hennes vassa sociala observationer och skildringar av bottenlös ensamhet har gett henne rykte som en av de stora sedeskildrarna i efterkrigstidens England. Här presenteras romanerna Förträffliga kvinnor [1952] och Höstkvartett [1977] i översättning av Jane Lundblad och med ett nyskrivet förord av litteraturkritikern Annina Rabe.

BARBARA PYM [1913-1980] var en engelsk författare. Under 1950-talet skrev hon en rad romaner, varav Förträffliga kvinnor förblivit den mest lästa och älskade. Efter ett längre uppehåll blev romanen Höstkvartett en stor återkomst. Den nominerades till Booker-priset, och när Times Literary Supplement samma år frågade en rad framstående författare vem de ansåg vara 1900-talets mest underskattade kollega var Barbara Pym den som fick flest röster.

»Så välskrivet och så fint. Jag förstår definitivt att de kallas moderna klassiker.« Millans bokhylla

“The finest introduction to Barbara Pym” (The New York Times): a hilarious comedy of manners by the shrewdly observant British novelist often compared to Jane Austen One of Barbara Pym’s richest and most amusing high comedies, Excellent Women has at its center Mildred Lathbury, a clergyman’s daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those “excellent women,” the smart, supportive, repressed women who men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors—anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky, and Julian Malory, the vicar next door—the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived in a vanishing world of manners and repressed desires.

INTRODUCED BY LOUIS DE BERNIERES''I''m a huge fan of Barbara Pym'' RICHARD OSMAN''I''d sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen'' PHILIP LARKINFormidable Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties for young academics and acting as watchdog for the morals of North Oxford. Anthea, her great-niece, is in love with a dashing undergraduate with political ambitions. Of this, Miss Doggett thoroughly approves. However, Anthea''s father, an Oxford don, is carrying on in the most unseemly fashion with a student - they have been spotted together at the British museum! But the only liaison Miss Doggett isn''t aware of is taking place under her very own roof: the lodger has proposed to her paid companion Miss Morrow. She wouldn''t approve of that at all.''Brilliant, hilarious and so very, very English'' DAILY MAIL''My favourite writer . . . I pick up her books with joy'' JILLY COOPER

INTRODUCED BY HAZEL HOLT''I''m a huge fan of Barbara Pym'' Richard Osman''I''d sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen'' Philip LarkinWhen Barbara Pym died in 1980, she left a considerable amount of unpublished material. This volume contains an early novel, Civil to Strangers, three novellas and an autobiographical essay, ''Finding a Voice'', Pym''s only written comment on her writing career.In Civil to Strangers, the lives of a young couple, Cassandra Marsh-Gibbon and her self-absorbed writer husband Adam, are thrown into upheaval when a mysterious Hungarian arrives in their village.''A sublime social comedy . . . It exists inside the Pym Eden of safety, silliness and a kind of subdued hilarity. Look out for one of her best curates - the starchy, spinster-dodging Mr Paladin - and a typically deliciously insensitive vicar'' KATE SAUNDERS, THE TIMES''Brilliant, hilarious, poignant and so very, very English'' TIME

INTRODUCED BY KATE SAUNDERS''I''m a huge fan of Barbara Pym'' RICHARD OSMAN''My favourite writer . . . I pick up her books with joy'' JILLY COOPER''Beneath the gentle surfaces of her novels is a slow-building comedy, salt wit in a saline drip'' NEW YORK TIMESIn a provincial university town, Caro Grimstone, a dissatisfied faculty wife, becomes the unwilling accomplice to her husband Alan''s ambitions. When she volunteers to read to a blind, esteemed anthropologist in a nursing home, Alan seizes the opportunity to steal his papers - research that could both advance his reputation while refuting the findings of a respected colleague. A delightful comedy of manners with a touch of mystery, An Academic Question is prime Barbara Pym territory.

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 Tyler

Together 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 her yet again this year. Belinda, meanwhile, has harboured sober feelings of devotion towards Archdeacon Hoccleve for thirty years.

Then into their quiet, comfortable lives comes a famous librarian, Nathaniel Mold, and a bishop from Africa, Theodore Grote - who each takes to calling on the sisters for rather more unsettling reasons.

''Some Tame Gazelle is my personal favourite for its sparkling high comedy and its treasury of characters . . . [Pym] makes me smile, laugh out loud, consider my own foibles and fantasies, and, above all, suffer real regret when I reach the final page. Of how many authors can you honestly say that?'' MAVIS CHEEK

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 TYLER

Catherine 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 to the reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has a fondness for wearing African masks. Added to this love tangle are the activities of Deirdre''s fellow students and their attempts to win the competition for a research grant.

The course of true love or academia never did run smooth.

''Her best [novels] are sheer delight, and all of them companionable. Quiet, paradoxical, funny and sad, they have the iron in them of permanence too'' JOHN UPDIKE, NEW YORKER

''She can be seriously, hilariously funny - no other novelist has celebrated our national silliness with such exuberance'' KATE SAUNDERS

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'' PHILIP LARKINWilmet Forsyth is well dressed, well looked after, suitably husbanded, good-looking and fairly young - but very bored. Her staid husband Rodney, a civil servant, is slightly balder and fatter than he once was. Wilmet would like to think she has changed rather less. Her conventional life takes a turn when she meets the handsome brother of a close friend. Attractive, cultured and attentive, Piers Longridge is a delectable mystery Wilmet is determined to solve.

BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR INTRODUCED BY JILLY COOPER''I''m a huge fan of Barbara Pym'' RICHARD OSMAN''I devoured all her books, but Jane and Prudence remains my favourite'' JILLY COOPER ''Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life'' ANNE TYLERIf Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates seem an unlikely pair to be walking together at an Oxford reunion, neither of them is aware of it. They couldn''t be more different: Jane is a rather incompetent vicar''s wife, who always looks as if she is about to feed the chickens, while Prudence, a pristine hothouse flower, has the most unsuitable affairs. With the move to a rural parish, Jane is determined to find her friend the perfect man. She learns, though, that matchmaking has as many pitfalls as housewifery.''This comedy of manners is a salutary reminder of just how good Barbara Pym was . . . This book is a gem'' THE TIMES

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. One cannot take sides in these matters, though it is tricky, especially as Mildred has a soft spot for dashing young Rockingham Napier. This is Barbara Pym''s world at its funniest and most touching.''One of the most endearingly amusing English novels of the twentieth century'' ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH''Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life'' ANNE TYLER''Not only was Pym a comic genius but she was ever so wise'' THE TIMES

INTRODUCED BY PAUL BINDING

''I''m a huge fan of Barbara Pym'' RICHARD OSMAN ''I''d sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen'' PHILIP LARKIN

''No novelist brings more telling observation or more gentle pleasure'' JILLY COOPER

Dulcie Mainwaring is always helping others, but never looks out for herself - especially in the realm of love. Her friend Viola is besotted by the alluring Dr Aylwin Forbes, so surely it isn''t prying if Dulcie helps things along? Aylwin, however, is smitten with Dulcie''s pretty, young niece. And perhaps Dulcie herself, however ridiculous it might be, is falling, just a little, for Aylwin. Once life''s little humiliations are played out, maybe love will be returned, and fondly, after all . . .