|
An Academic Question
''An Academic Question'' is a novel by Barbara Pym, written in the early 1970s and published posthumously in 1986. Synopsis Caroline 'Caro' Grimstone is the wife of a sociology professor in a small West Country university town. While her husband is fascinated by dinner parties discussing African anthropology and minor academic points, Caro is growing tired of her dull village and her pale marriage, as well as their unpleasant 4-year-old daughter. A dying missionary, Reverend Stillingfleet, ends up in a nearby nursing home, and Caro's husband Alan realises that Stillingfleet possesses an unpublished manuscript on their shared field of anthropology. Concerned that the manuscript will be lost - or worse bequeathed to a rival - Alan convinces Caro to steal the manuscript, allowing him to write a groundbreaking paper. Caro begins to regret the theft, as well as developing suspicions that Alan is having an affair with his attractive editor. She seeks out the guidance of her friends Ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Pym
Barbara Mary Crampton Pym FRSL (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). In 1977 her career was revived when the critic Lord David Cecil and the poet Philip Larkin both nominated her as the most under-rated writer of the century. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hazel Holt
Hazel Holt (nee Young, 3 September 1928 – 23 November 2015) was a British novelist. She studied at King Edward VI High School for Girls in Birmingham, England, and then Newnham College, Cambridge. She went on to work at the International African Institute in London, where she became acquainted with the novelist Barbara Pym, whose biography she later wrote. She also finished one of Pym's novels after Pym died. Holt has published ''My Dear Charlotte'', a story that uses the actual language of Jane Austen's letters to her sister Cassandra to construct a Regency murder mystery. Holt wrote her first novel in her sixties, and was a leading crime novelist. She is best known for her Sheila Malory series. She was also a regular contributor to ''The Stage'' for some years.'''' She married Geoffrey Louis Holt (1924-2010) in 1951; their son is novelist Tom Holt Thomas Charles Louis Holt (born 13 September 1961) is a British novelist. In addition to fiction published under his own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By Barbara Pym
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1986 British Novels
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 **Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal enter the European Community, which becomes the European Union in 1993. *January 11 – The Gateway Bridge in Brisbane, Australia, at this time the world's longest prestressed concrete free-cantilever bridge, is opened. *January 13– 24 – South Yemen Civil War. *January 20 – The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel. *January 24 – The Voyager 2 space probe makes its first encounter with Uranus. *January 25 – Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army Rebel group takes over Uganda after leading a five-year guerrilla war in which up to half a million people are believed to have been killed. They will later use January 26 as the official date to avoid a coincidence of dates with Dictator Idi Amin's 1971 co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Few Green Leaves
''A Few Green Leaves'' is the final novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1980, the year of Pym's death. Although several novels were published posthumously, ''A Few Green Leaves'' was the final novel she worked on. Synopsis Anthropologist Emma Howick arrives in a small English village in the 1970s, wanting to write a piece on how village life has changed (or not changed). Emma spends her days trying to examine the residents, treating them as subjects for her paper, including the rector and his sister, the local doctors (a generation apart in age and attitudes) and their wives, a food critic, and the resident spinsters and bohemians. Emma ponders whether she could adjust permanently to village life, and notes the changes that time has wrought on local customs. Among them are the decline of the manor house, which was once the site of regular gatherings for locals, but is now off limits, and the life of the rector, Tom, whose sister came to live with him after the death of his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Excellent Women
''Excellent Women'' is a novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1952, her second published novel and generally acclaimed as the funniest and most successful of her comedies of manners. Title The phrase "excellent women" is used by men in reference to the kind of women who perform small but meaningful duties in the service of churches and voluntary organisations. The phrase was first used by Pym in her early unpublished novel ''Civil to Strangers'' and is taken from Jane Austen's novel ''Sanditon''. Plot summary The book details the everyday life of its narrator, Mildred Lathbury, a spinster in her thirties in 1950s Britain. Perpetually self-deprecating, but with the sharpest wit, Mildred is a part-time voluntary worker who occupies herself by attending and helping at the local church. Mildred's life grows more exciting with the arrival of new neighbours, anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky – with whom Mildred fancies herself in love. Thro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Unsuitable Attachment
''An Unsuitable Attachment'' is a novel by Barbara Pym, written in 1963 and published posthumously in 1982.Donato, Deborah (2005), ''Reading Barbara Pym'', Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, p. 14, Google Books./ref> Synopsis The plot concerns librarian Ianthe Broome, a well-bred young woman left in comfortable circumstances by her late parents. There is no shortage of "suitable" candidates for Ianthe's hand, notably Rupert Stonebird. It surprises no one more than Ianthe herself when she falls for the new library assistant, a young man of doubtful antecedents with no money to spare. Some of the action takes place against the backdrop of Rome, where Ianthe and a group of other churchgoers are taking a sightseeing holiday. Being apart from John makes Ianthe realise how much she really cares for him, and on her return she agrees to his proposal, scandalizing her friends and family. As they settle down to their new life together, Rupert begins to recognise the charms of Penel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital media, digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as ''The Daily (podcast), The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones (publisher), George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won List of Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The New York Times, 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national "newspaper of record". For print it is ranked List of newspapers by circulation, 18th in the world by circulation and List of newspapers in the United States, 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is Public company, publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 189 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers' literature. ''Kirkus Reviews'', published on the first and 15th of each month; previews books before their publication. ''Kirkus'' reviews over 10,000 titles per year. History Virginia Kirkus was hired by Harper & Brothers to establish a children's book department in 1926. The department was eliminated as an economic measure in 1932 (for about a year), so Kirkus left and soon established her own book review service. Initially, she arranged to get galley proofs of "20 or so" books in advance of their publication; almost 80 years later, the service was receiving hundreds of books weekly and reviewing about 100. Initially titled ''Bulletin'' by Kirkus' Bookshop Service from 1933 to 1954, the title was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angela Pleasence
Daphne Anne Angela Pleasence (born 30 September 1941) is an English actress. Trained in theatre, Pleasence's first major film role came in '' Hitler: The Last Ten Days'' (1973), followed by roles in horror films such as ''From Beyond the Grave'' and ''Symptoms'' (1974). She worked extensively in television productions and British miniseries throughout the 1980s and 1990s. She had minor roles in the films ''The Search for John Gissing'' (2001), ''Gangs of New York'' (2002), and ''The Gigolos'' (2005). Biography Pleasence was born in Chapeltown, Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, to Miriam Raymond and actor Donald Pleasence. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and made her stage debut in 1964 as Titania in a production of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. She appeared extensively in London theatre productions throughout the 1970s. She is known for her performance as Catherine Howard in the 1970 BBC serial '' The Six Wives of Hen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chivers Press
AudioGO (formerly BBC Audiobooks) was a publisher of audiobooks and a range of spoken word and large-print titles. It was majority owned by AudioGO Ltd, and minority owned by BBC Worldwide. It was formed in 2010, when AudioGO purchased a majority share in BBC Audiobooks, and traded until it went into administration in 2013. AudioGO published unabridged audio novels, and the BBC Radio Collection which incorporated dramatisations and non-fiction output derived from BBC Radio programmes. Novels were published under the imprint ''AudioGO'', and BBC-sourced content under the ''BBC Audio'' imprint, the latter making up about 20% of new titles as at 2010. Catalogue AudioGO had about 8,500 titles in its catalogue at the time it went into administration in 2013. Thereupon AudioGO's catalogue of non-BBC titles was sold to Audible.com. The BBC titles, formerly known as the BBC Radio Collection, and considered by industry experts to be the most valuable asset, were licensed to Random Hous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.png "Click for more on -> New York Times")