Description

Darkly funny and full of stubborn optimism, Quartet in Autumn is a classic. Showing Barbara Pym at her very best, it portrays the strange and wonderful quirks of everyday life.

‘Spectacular’ – The Sunday Times
‘Quartet in Autumn is immeasurably her finest work of fiction’ – Evening Standard
‘Barbara Pym has a sharp eye for the exact nuances of social behaviour’ – The Times

In 1970s London, Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia work in the same office and suffer the same problem – loneliness.

Lovingly and with delightful humour, Barbara Pym conducts us through their day-to-day existence: their preoccupations, their irritations, their judgements, and – perhaps most keenly felt – their worries about having somehow missed out on life as post-war Britain shifted around them.

Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

Publisher Review

Barbara Pym’s unpretentious, subtle, accomplished novels . . . are for me the finest examples of high comedy to have appeared in England during the past 75 years . . . spectacular * The Sunday Times * Barbara Pym has a sharp eye for the exact nuances of social behaviour * The Times * The wit and style of a twentieth-century Jane Austen * Harper’s & Queen * Very funny and keenly observant of the ridiculous as well as the pathetic in humanity * Financial Times * A spare masterpiece of loneliness in retirement * The Telegraph * Quartet in Autumn is immeasurably her finest work of fiction * Evening Standard * An alert miniaturist . . . her novels have a distinctive flavour, as instantly recognizable as lapsang tea * The Daily Telegraph * No novelist brings more telling observation or more gentle pleasure — Jilly Cooper