This is a biography of Barbara Pym which draws on hitherto unpublished material and extracts from her correspondence with Philip Larkin. The book describes her Shropshire childhood, her romantic love affairs in Oxford, her service as a WRNS officer in Naples and her attempts to become a successful novelist. The author, a close friend of Barbara Pym's for 30 years, also examines the dark period from 1963, when Pym's novels were rejected as unpublishable, through the wilderness years until 1977 when her literary reputation was re-established by Philip Larkin and Lord Cecil.
- ISBN10 0745173268
- ISBN13 9780745173269
- Publish Date 2 June 1992 (first published 1 November 1990)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 16 June 2000
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher AudioGO Limited
- Imprint Chivers Large print (Chivers, Windsor, Paragon & C
- Edition Large type / large print edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 456
- Language English