'One of the most endearingly amusing English novels of the twentieth century' Alexander McCall Smith

Mildred Lathbury is one of those 'excellent women' who is often taken for granted. She is a godsend, 'capable of dealing with most of the stock situations of life - birth, marriage, death, the successful jumble sales, the garden fete spoilt by bad weather'.

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

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

'One of her very best - comic, heartrending, brave; in short, like life itself' Shirley Hazzard

Set in St Basil's, a North London parish, Barbara Pym's novel is full of high comedy. Her depiction of characters begins with Mark the vicar, and his wife Sophia who is quite obsessed with cats, as is Daisy Pettigrew, the vet's sister.

Between the amorous antique dealer Humphrey and his good-looking nephew James glides the magnificent Leonora, delicate as porcelain, cool as ice. Can she keep James in her thrall? Or will he be taken from her by a lover, like Phoebe or Ned, the wicked American?

A chance encounter over a Victorian flower book brings together Humphrey, an antiques dealer, his nephew James, and Leonora. Although she is considerably older, Leonora develops a fondness for James. She also knows that Humphrey has feelings for her. Leonora is determined to keep James under her spell until she realises that she has to contend with the bookish Phoebe. Then Ned, a wicked young ...

Published in the last year of Barbara Pym's life, 'A Few Green Leaves' combines the rural settings of her earliest novels with the themes and characters of her later works. The result is a compelling portrait of a town that seems to be forgotten by time, but which is unmistakably affected by it. Romance shares the pages with death in this engaging novel that is the culmination of Barbara Pym's ...

This is a wonderfully accomplished farce with the joke of using her own name in the title (Barbara Mary Crampton Pym). From that point she sails off into a wickedly comedic farce, focusing -- in recognisingly 'pym' fashion -- 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 ...

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Harriet and Belinda Bede live a comfortable, settled existence. Belinda, the quieter of the pair, has for years been secretly in love with the town's pompous (and married) archdeacon, whose odd sermons leave members of his flock in muddled confusion. Harriet, meanwhile, a bubbly extrovert, fends off proposal after proposal of marriage.

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Presents the story of four people in late middle-age - Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia - whose chief point of contact is that they work in the same office and they suffer the same problem - loneliness.

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'A modern Jane Austen' Alexander McCall Smith

Barbara Pym was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1978 and is the quintessential VMC author. Following on from the huge success of JANE AND PRUDENCE, this novel was loved by Philip Larkin who declared it 'the subtlest of her books'.