Description

BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

WITH 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 LARKIN

Wilmet 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.

Publisher Review

Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures -- Anne Tyler I'd sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen . . . The subtlest of her books - the sparkle on first acquaintance has been succeeded by the deeper brilliance of established art -- Philip Larkin I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym -- Richard Osman [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 There is a thrill of humanity through all her work -- Shirley Hazzard My favourite writer . . . I pick up her books with joy, as though I were meeting an old, dear friend who comforts me, extends my vision and makes me roar with laughter -- Jilly Cooper A modern Jane Austen -- Alexander McCall Smith Another instalment in America's exposure to the Pyro revival, which began in England in 1976 and happily arrived here in 1978 . . . Essential reading for Pym's growing readership on this side of the Atlantic * Kirkus Reviews *