Jilly Cooper introduces this republication of an early comic novel by Barbara Pym. von Pym, Barbara

'She is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life' Anne TylerIn a provincial university town Caro Grimstone, a dissatisfied faculty wife, becomes the unwilling accomplice to her husband...

INTRODUCED BY JILLY COOPER 'Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life' ANNE TYLER If Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates seem an unlikely pair to be walking together at an Oxford...

INTRODUCED BY LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES 'My favourite writer . . . I pick up her books with joy' JILLY COOPER 'Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life' ANNE TYLER Formidable Miss...

INTRODUCED BY MAVIS CHEEK 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...

INTRODUCED BY KATE SAUNDERS 'I am a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN In a provincial university town, Caro Grimstone, a dissatisfied faculty wife, becomes the unwilling accomplice to her husband Alan's ambitions. When she...

INTRODUCED BY HAZEL HOLT 'Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life' ANNE TYLER When Barbara Pym died in 1980, she left a considerable amount of unpublished material. This...

INTRODUCED BY ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH 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,...

With introduction by John Bayley. von Pym, Barbara

INTRODUCED BY PAUL BINDING 'One of her very best - comic, heartrending, brave; in short, like life itself' SHIRLEY HAZZARD 'Pym has a unique eye and ear for the small poignancies and comedies of everyday life . . . [her novels] are...

Jane and Prudence von Pym, Barbara

INTRODUCED BY SALLEY VICKERS '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 YORKERCatherine Oliphant is a writer and...