Barbara Pym Ordine dei libri (cronologico)

Dulcie Mainwearing 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 by Dulcie's pretty young niece. And perhaps Dulcie herself, however ridiculous it may 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.

Wilmet Forsyth is well dressed, well looked after, suitably husbanded, good looking and fairly young - but very bored. Her husband Rodney, a handsome army major, is slightly balder and fatter than he once was. Wilmet would like to think she has changed rather less. Her interest wanders to the nearby Anglo-catholic church, where at last she can neglect her comfortable household in the more serious-minded company of three unmarried priests, and, of course, Piers Longridge, a man of an unfathomably different character altogether.

Ianthe Broome, figlia di un canonico e nipote di un pastore, è proprio il tipo che ci vuole per St Basil, la parrocchia di un quartiere periferico di Londra, dove vive solo gente perbene. Per esempio Daisy Pettigrew che condivide col fratello la passione per gli animali, o Sophia Ainger divisa fra l'amore per il marito e quello per la gatta Faustina, o sorella Dew sempre pronta ad accorrere in caso di bisogno, e molte altre ancora. L'unica eccezione alla routine del quartiere è Penelope Grandison, una beatnik preraffaellita perennemente a caccia di un marito. Come un raggio di sole in questo mondo all'apparenza grigio, in realtà bizzarro, entra in scena John Challow, il giovane e spiantato bibliotecario che lavora gomito a gomito con Ianthe, di cui si innamora dando inizio a un sottile ma rischioso gioco di seduzione. Un viaggio nel caldo e passionale meridione italiano coinvolge in divertenti vicende il gruppo di St Basil, scombinando e ricomponendo gli equilibri interni. Al ritorno qualcosa è cambiato. Penelope troverà l'amore? E Ianthe si concederà una relazione sconveniente?

A delightful comedy of manners, An Academic Question is prime Barbara Pym

Quartet in autumn is the story of four people in late middle-age who work in the same office and who all suffer from loneliness. Poignantly and with humour, Pym takes us through their small lives and the facades they erect to defend themselves against the outside world.

A charming and funny tale of match-making misadventures by an author whose fans include Philip Larkin, Alexander McCall Smith and Jilly Cooper.

Mildred 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 fete 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.

Here, Barbara Mary Crampton Pym sails off into a wickedly comedic farce, focusing on the unsuitable romantic entanglements of a curate and a pretty young girl, both of whom live in the same rooming house, and a starry-eyed university professor and his female student.

A charming and funny tale of parish life by an author whose many fans include Philip Larkin, Alexander McCall Smith and Jilly Cooper.

It is surely appropriate that anthropologists, who spend their time studying life and behavior in various societies, should be studied in their turn, says Barbara Pym. In a wonderful twist on her subjects, she has written a book inspecting the behavior o

A collection of essays and poems on various locations in the British Isles, contributed by over forty writers with special connections to the landscape.

Over Barbara Pym's 30-year writing career her primary subject was the intricate rituals of English life, which she observed with a sharp but understanding eye. Her novels now enjoy a devoted following and belated recognition as classics of the British comic novel. In The Sweet Dove Died , first published in 1978, she sardonically uncovers the sometimes troubling truths behind relationships. A chance encounter over a Victorian flower book brings together Humphrey, an antique dealer, James, his nephew, and Leonora. Although she is considerably older, Leonora develops a fondness for James. She's determined to keep him under her spell, until she realizes that she has to contend with the bookish Phoebe. When Ned, a wicked young American, appears on the scene, the book begins to live up to its droll title, taken from John Keats.