Barbara Pym

Zoe Brennan (University of the West of England)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

Born 2 Jun 1913
Died 11 Jan 1980
Activity 1952-1980

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Novelist

Resources

Pym's Works

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Barbara Pym is the author of twelve novels and a posthumously published collection of semi-complete novels and short stories. She writes character-driven narratives that explore the disappointments and consolations of what, on the surface at least, may appear uneventful lives. The poet Philip Larkin commented that her stories are set in a particularly “English scene” – composed of parish churches, the offices of civil servants and academics, the library and tea-shop (Holt 1992 200). Her observational and unsentimental style is often comic and, as her career progressed, tinged with a pathos that was never fully allowed to swamp the quiet tenacity of her characters.

Born into a financially comfortable middle-class family on the June 2, 1913, Pym remembered her childhood as a happy

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2371 words

Citation: Brennan, Zoe. "Barbara Pym". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 September 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3672, accessed 23 November 2024.]