Barbara Pym received by far her greatest acclaim, which included frequent comparisons between her work and that of Jane Austen, just prior to and after the end of her life. Her early novels were published with modest success; after her publisher's devastating rejection of her seventh novel in 1963, she lived in obscurity for fourteen years, only to be “rediscovered” in 1977. By this time, however, she had only a short time left to live. Since her death in 1980 posthumous publications have swelled her oeuvre, and she has attracted widespread critical attention.

Pym was born in Oswestry, a town in Shropshire near the Welsh border, on 6 June 1913. Her father, Frederic Crampton Pym, was a solicitor; her mother, Irena Thomas Pym, was one of ten children of an Oswestry ironmonger. Barbara had one sister, Hilary. Her childhood was a happy one, according to Hilary 's account. The family was comfortably middle...