The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym

(Hardback)

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Captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously JILLY COOPER

Picked as a Book to Look Forward to in 2021 by the Guardian, The Times and the Observer

A Radio 4 Book of the Week, April 2021
Barbara Pym became beloved as one of the wittiest novelists of the late twentieth century, revealing the inner workings of domestic life so brilliantly that her friend Philip Larkin announced her the eras own Jane Austen. But who was Barbara Pym and why was the life of this English writer one of the greatest chroniclers of the human heart so defined by rejection, both in her writing and in love

Pym lived through extraordinary times. She attended Oxford in the thirties when women were the minority. She spent time in Nazi Germany, falling for a man who was close to Hitler. She made a career on the Home Front as a single working girl in Londons bedsit land. Through all of this, she wrote. Diaries, notes, letters, stories and more than a dozen novels which as Byrne shows more often than not reflected the themes of Pyms own experience: worlds of spinster sisters and academics in unrequited love, of powerful intimacies that pulled together seemingly humble lives.

Paula Byrnes new biography is the first to make full use of Barbara Pyms archive. Brimming with new extracts from Pyms diaries, letters and novels, this book is a joyous introduction to a woman who was herself the very best of company.

Byrne brings Barbara Pym back to centre stage as one of the great English novelists: a generous, shrewdly perceptive writer and a brave woman, who only in the last years of her life was suddenly, resoundingly recognised for her genius.

Reviews

Byrnes comprehensive biography is unlikely to be bettered This is an elegant, incisive and sympathetic biography that deepens our understanding of Pym Byrne succeeds admirably
Literary Review

Engrossing The chapters are enticingly short, and I romped through them. Each adds a vital piece of the jigsaw, explaining the provenance of her fictional characters and building up our understanding of [her] state of mind Its a delight to meet her again in these pages
The Times

Light-hearted and lively Byrne is an excellent literary detective, tracing acquaintances directly into the novels. The author seems to have been as fun, clever and kind as her best creations
Lucy Atkins, Sunday Times

Illuminating Byrne sees what fun Pym was, how much she liked and was fascinated by people and has done us a great service in exploring this very unusual personality This, like its subjects best books, rewards reading and re-reading
Spectator

Both hilarious and heartbreaking Byrne is beautifully savvy about her subjects fiction as a manifesto for her genius, it is gloriously persuasive
Daily Telegraph

Byrnes book is outstanding Just like a Pym novel, this biography is warm, funny, unexpected and deeply moving
Financial Times

Excellent Byrnes book is the first to integrate its revelations into a cradle-to-grave biography
Guardian, Book of the Week

Outstanding meticulously researched, affectionate and fascinating in equal measure
Daily Express

Wonderfully attentive and touching Byrnes book is such a joy. It refreshes the parts other biographies simply cannot reach
Observer

Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure. I am therefore enchanted that this biography by Paul Byrne captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously
Jilly Cooper

Author Bio

Paula Byrne was born in Birkenhead and has a PhD from the University of Liverpool, where she is a Research Fellow in English Literature. Her first book, Jane Austen and the Theatre, was shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize. Her second book, Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson , the tale of the scandalous star of the 18th-century stage, literature and high-society, was a Richard and Judy bookclub pick. Her most recent book is Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead. The story of Evelyn Waugh's friendship with the extraordinary aristocratic family who inspired Brideshead Revisited, it was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. A regular contributor to the 'Times Literary Supplement', she lives in Warwickshire with her two young children and her husband, the critic and biographer Jonathan Bate.