INTRODUCED BY LOUIS DE BERNIERES
‘I’d sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen’ Philip Larkin
Formidable Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties to young academics and acting as watchdog of the morals of North Oxford. Anthea, her great-niece, is in love with a dashing upper-class undergraduate with political ambitions. Of this, Miss Doggett thoroughly approves. Anthea’s father, however, an Oxford don, is tired of his marriage and carrying on in the most unseemly fashion with his student Barbara Bird – they have been spotted together at the British Museum! Miss Doggett isn’t aware, though, that under her very own roof the lodging curate has proposed to her paid companion Miss Morrow. She wouldn’t approve of that at all.
‘I’d sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen’ Philip Larkin
Formidable Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties to young academics and acting as watchdog of the morals of North Oxford. Anthea, her great-niece, is in love with a dashing upper-class undergraduate with political ambitions. Of this, Miss Doggett thoroughly approves. Anthea’s father, however, an Oxford don, is tired of his marriage and carrying on in the most unseemly fashion with his student Barbara Bird – they have been spotted together at the British Museum! Miss Doggett isn’t aware, though, that under her very own roof the lodging curate has proposed to her paid companion Miss Morrow. She wouldn’t approve of that at all.
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Reviews
An entertainment that is funny, poignant, observant and truthful
I'd sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen
Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life
Pym at her absolute funniest
Brilliant, hilarious and so very, very English
My favourite writer . . . I pick up her books with joy
The rare charm of Crampton Hodnet is in the glimpse it offers of Pym's imagination as it pauses for a moment in perfect understanding of a character. That sympathy stretches beyond the horizon of comedy
I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym
