Barbara Mary Crampton Pym (2 June 1913 – 11 January 1980) was an English novelist. In the 1950s, she published a series of social comedies, of which the best known are Excellent Women (1952) and A Glass of Blessings (1958). After a period of rejection by publishers, her career was revived in 1977 when the critic Lord David Cecil and the poet Philip Larkin nominated her as the most underrated writer of the previous 75 years. Her novel Quartet in Autumn (1977) was nominated for the Booker Prize that year, and she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Biography
Early life Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was born on 2 June 1913 at 72 Willow Street in Oswestry, Shropshire, the elder daughter of Irena Spenser, née Thomas (1886–1945) and Frederic Crampton Pym (1879–1966), a solicitor. She was educated at Queen's Park School, a girls' school in Oswestry. From the age of 12, she attended Huyton College, near Liverpool. Pym's parents were active in the local Oswestry operatic society, and she was encouraged to write and be creative from an early age. She spent most of her childhood at Morda Lodge in Morda Road, Oswestry, where in 1922 she staged her first play, The Magic Diamond, performed by family and friends.
In 1931 she went to St Hilda's College, Oxford, to study English. There she developed a close friendship with the future novelist and literary critic Robert Liddell, who would read her early works and provide key feedback.Holt 1990, p. 57 She took a second-class BA honours degree in English in 1934. In the 1930s she visited Germany several times, developing a love for the country, and a romantic relationship with a young Nazi officer, Friedbert Gluck. She initially admired Hitler, and did not foresee the advent of war, but she later recognised her "blind spot", and removed a character based on Gluck from the novel she was writing.
In early 1939, Pym approached Jonathan Cape about a job in publishing; none was available at the time. The outbreak of World War II changed her plans, and in 1941 she went to work for the Censorship Department in Bristol, initially checking letters between Irish families in Britain and Ireland. Later, she joined the Women's Royal Naval Service. From 1943 she served in naval postal censorship in Southampton, and was subsequently posted to Naples.Holt 1990, pp. 97–98 She had learned about coded messages while an examiner, and may have worked for or with MI5.
Personal life In June 1946, Pym started work at the International African Institute in London. She became the assistant editor of the scholarly journal Africa, and continued in this role until her retirement in 1974.Holt 1990, p. 183 That inspired her use of anthropologists as characters in some of her novels, notably Excellent Women, Less than Angels and An Unsuitable Attachment. Pym's sister Hilary separated from her husband in 1946, and the two sisters moved into a flat in Pimlico. Later they moved to a house in Queen's Park.
Pym did not marry or have children, but had several close relationships with men. In her undergraduate days, they included Henry Harvey (a fellow Oxford student, who remained the love of her life)James Runcie: "Miss Pym's Day Out". Accessed 17 March 2013 and Rupert Gleadow.Holt 1990, pp. 34–35 When she was 24 she had a romance with the future politician Julian Amery, six years her junior.Faber, David, Speaking for England, London, 2005, In 1942 she had a brief relationship with the BBC radio producer Gordon Glover, who was the estranged husband of her friend Honor Wyatt. Glover broke this off abruptly, which deeply upset Pym,Byrne, Paula, The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym (2021: William Collins), pp. 334–335. and when Glover died in 1975 she burnt her diary for 1942.Byrne, Paula, The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym (2021: William Collins), p. 563.
Early literary career Pym wrote her first novel, Some Tame Gazelle, in 1935, but it was rejected by numerous publishers, including Jonathan Cape and Gollancz.Pym 1984, p. 56. She wrote another novel, Civil to Strangers, in 1936, and several novellas in the following years, which were published as Civil to Strangers after Pym's death. In 1940, Pym wrote the novel Crampton Hodnet, which was also published after her death.Pym 1984, p. 97.
After some years of submitting stories to women's magazines, Pym heavily revised Some Tame Gazelle, which this time was accepted by Jonathan Cape, and published in 1950.Christopher Fowler, "Invisible Ink: No. 68" , The Independent, 13 March 2011, accessed 30 September 2011. The poet Philip Larkin described Some Tame Gazelle as Pym's Pride and Prejudice. The novel follows the lives of two middle-aged spinster sisters in an English village before the War, who in the course of the narrative are both given offers of marriage but turn them down in favour of their settled life. That year, Pym also had a radio play – Something to Remember – accepted by the BBC.Holt 1990, p. 145.
Pym's second novel, Excellent Women (1952), was well received, but her third, Jane and Prudence (1953), received more mixed reviews.Holt 1990, p. 164. Her fourth novel, Less than Angels (1955), had poorer sales than the previous three,Letter from Wren Howard to Barbara Pym, December 1955, published in A Few Green Leaves: The Journal of the Barbara Pym Society, Vol. 9, No. 2, November 2003. but it attracted enough attention to be Pym's debut novel in the United States. A representative from Twentieth Century Fox came to England with an interest in securing the film rights, but this fell through.Holt 1990, p. 171.
Pym's fifth novel, A Glass of Blessings (1958), was poorly reviewed. Pym noted that – of her first six novels – it was the worst reviewed.Pym 1984, p. 203. However, the inclusion of sympathetic homosexual characters, in an era when homosexuality was largely frowned upon, and homosexual acts between men were illegal, attracted some interest in contemporary reviews, including The Daily Telegraph.Holt 1990, p. 180. Pym's sixth novel was No Fond Return of Love (1961), in which two women engaged in editorial work fall in love with the same man. The book continued the trend of Pym's novels receiving minimal critical attention. Nonetheless, it was positively reviewed in Tatler, the reviewer commenting:
When Pym made a less than flattering allusion to a Marks and Spencer's dress in her work, the company's legal department was sufficiently concerned by her influence to write to her.
"Wilderness years" In 1963, Pym submitted her seventh novel – An Unsuitable Attachment – to Cape. Editor Tom Maschler, who had recently joined the firm, rejected the manuscript, on the advice of two readers. Pym wrote back to protest that she was being unfairly treated, but was told (sympathetically but firmly) that the novel did not show promise.Holt 1990, pp. 192–197. Pym revised the manuscript and sent it to several other publishers, but with no success. Pym was advised that her style of writing was old-fashioned, and that the public were no longer interested in books about small-town spinsters and vicars. She was forced to consider finding a new authorial voice, but concluded that she was too old to adapt to what publishers considered popular taste.https://barbara-pym.org/about-barbara-pym-and-her-writings/finding-a-voice/ Pym, Barbara, Finding a Voice, radio talk given 4 April 1978 on BBC Radio 3, archived at The Barbara Pym Society website, accessed 26 April 2020]. Pym was told that the minimum 'economic figure' for book sales was 4,000 copies; several of her books from the 1950s had not achieved that number.Holt 1990, p. 204.
As a result, Pym did not publish anything from 1962 until 1977. Nevertheless, she continued to write novels and short stories, and to refine existing works, while she continued her career at the International African Institute. Pym never fully forgave Cape, or Tom Maschler. She and her sister invented a dessert called "Maschler pudding", which was a combination of lime jelly and milk. In 1965, she wrote in a letter, "I really still wonder if my books will ever be acceptable again".Pym 1984, p. 234. Pym wrote The Sweet Dove Died in 1968 and An Academic Question in 1970. She submitted Dove to several publishers but it too was rejected. However, her earlier novels were reprinted during this period because of popular demand in public libraries.Pym 1984, p. 254.
Pym wrote 27 short stories, of which only six were published during her lifetime. The remainder are stored in the Pym archives at the Bodleian Library.A Few Green Leaves: The Journal of the Barbara Pym Society, Vol. 11, No. 1, May 2005.
In 1961, Pym began a correspondence with Philip Larkin, as he wanted to write a review article of her novels.Pym 1984, p. 214. They continued to exchange letters for 19 years, up to her death. They met for the first time in April 1975, at the Randolph Hotel, Oxford.
In 1971, Pym was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy of her left breast. The operation was successful and she was deemed clear of cancer.Pym 1984, p. 261. In 1972, Pym and her sister Hilary purchased Barn Cottage in Finstock in Oxfordshire. The sisters played an active role in the social life of the village. Pym retired in 1974.Pym 1984, p. 276. That year, she had a minor stroke, which left her temporarily with something like dyslexia.Holt 1990, p. 240. She continued to write, and completed Quartet in Autumn in 1976; it was rejected by Hamish Hamilton Limited. Although Pym was no longer being published, she was appointed to the awards committee of the Romantic Novelists' Association.
Rediscovery and final years On 21 January 1977, the Times Literary Supplement ran an article in which high-profile writers and academics named their most underrated and overrated books or authors of the previous 75 years (the lifetime of the publication). Pym was chosen as the most underrated writer by both Larkin and Lord David Cecil, and was the only person to be selected by two contributors. On the strength of that article, literary interest in Pym was revived after 16 years.Pym, Finding a Voice. Pym and Larkin had kept up a correspondence for 17 years, but even his influence had been of no use in getting her a new publishing contract. Several publishing companies now expressed an interest, including her former publisher Cape. Pym rejected them in favour of Macmillan, who agreed to publish Quartet in Autumn the same year.Pym 1984, p. 294. Before Quartet had been published, Macmillan also agreed to publish The Sweet Dove Died, which she had reworked since completing it 10 years earlier. Cape reprinted her earlier novels, to which they still had the rights. The BBC interviewed Pym for a programme, Tea with Miss Pym, which aired on 21 October 1977. Reviews of Quartet were almost uniformly positive, and the novel was nominated for the 1977 Booker Prize, which went to Paul Scott for Staying On.
The rediscovery also meant that Pym attracted more notice in the United States (Less Than Angels had been published there earlier). E. P. Dutton secured the rights to all of her existing novels and, starting with Excellent Women and Quartet in Autumn, published her entire oeuvre between 1978 and 1987.Holt 1990, p. 299. The discovery of Pym's novels, combined with the narrative of her "comeback", made her a minor success in the USA during that period. Following her return to the public eye, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Pym was the subject of Desert Island Discs on 1 August 1978; the episode was replayed on BBC Radio 4 Extra on 2 June 2013 – the centenary of her birth..