Pym, Barbara

Related Category: English Literature, 20th cent. to the Present: Biographies

(Barbara Mary Crampton Pym), 1913–80, English writer. Her books are quiet comedies, often dealing with older, usually frustrated, and isolated characters. After success with such novels as Excellent Women (1952) and A Glass of Blessings (1958), her works went out of print. In 1977, after publishing A Quartet in Autumn, she was praised by several British critics, and her novels subsequently became widely available again.