Quartet in Autumn
Published on 13. June 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-1-0350-3892-3 (ISBN)
Description
Darkly funny and full of stubborn optimism, Quartet in Autumn is a classic. Showing Barbara Pym at her very best, it portrays the strange and wonderful quirks of everyday life.
'Spectacular' - The Sunday Times
'Quartet in Autumn is immeasurably her finest work of fiction' - Evening Standard
'Barbara Pym has a sharp eye for the exact nuances of social behaviour' - The Times
In 1970s London, Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia work in the same office and suffer the same problem - loneliness.
Lovingly and with delightful humour, Barbara Pym conducts us through their day-to-day existence: their preoccupations, their irritations, their judgements, and - perhaps most keenly felt - their worries about having somehow missed out on life as post-war Britain shifted around them.
Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.
'Spectacular' - The Sunday Times
'Quartet in Autumn is immeasurably her finest work of fiction' - Evening Standard
'Barbara Pym has a sharp eye for the exact nuances of social behaviour' - The Times
In 1970s London, Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia work in the same office and suffer the same problem - loneliness.
Lovingly and with delightful humour, Barbara Pym conducts us through their day-to-day existence: their preoccupations, their irritations, their judgements, and - perhaps most keenly felt - their worries about having somehow missed out on life as post-war Britain shifted around them.
Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.
Reviews / Votes
Barbara Pym's unpretentious, subtle, accomplished novels . . . are for me the finest examples of high comedy to have appeared in England during the past 75 years . . . spectacular * The Sunday Times * Barbara Pym has a sharp eye for the exact nuances of social behaviour * The Times * The wit and style of a twentieth-century Jane Austen * Harper's & Queen * Very funny and keenly observant of the ridiculous as well as the pathetic in humanity * Financial Times * A spare masterpiece of loneliness in retirement * The Telegraph * Quartet in Autumn is immeasurably her finest work of fiction * Evening Standard * An alert miniaturist . . . her novels have a distinctive flavour, as instantly recognizable as lapsang tea * The Daily Telegraph * No novelist brings more telling observation or more gentle pleasure -- Jilly CooperMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 192 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
142 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-0350-3892-3 (9781035038923)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
A writer from the age of sixteen, Barbara Pym has been acclaimed as 'the most underrated writer of the century' (Philip Larkin). Pym's substantial reputation evolved through the publication of six novels from 1950 to 1961, then resumed in 1977 with the publication of Quartet in Autumn and three other novels. She died in 1980.