Order of Barbara Pym Books

Barbara Pym was an English novelist who died in 1980. Throughout her long and distinguished career, she became recognized for her social comedies, including A Glass of Blessings and Excellent Women. Pym's distinctive style emphasized character and style over plot. She spent seventeen years working at the International African Institute in London, where she served as the editor of their scholarly journal on Africa. Her first novel was published in 1950, and she continued to write until taking a lengthy break from 1963 to 1977, during which publishers deemed her style outdated and excluded her. In 1977, historian Lord David Cecil referred to her as the “Most underrated writer of the 20th century,” which sparked a revival in her career.