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A Very Private Eye: The Diaries, Letters and Notebooks of Barbara Pym
Intimate and unexpected portrait of the popular Engish novelist, Barbara Pym, in her own words, gathered from journals and a selection of her letters to close personal friends.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
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About the author
Barbara Pym
40 books987 followersPeople know British writer Barbara Pym for her comic novels, such as
Excellent Women
(1952), of English life.
After studying English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, Barbara Pym served in the Women's Royal Naval Service during World War II. From 1950 to 1961, she published six novels, but her 7th was declined by the publisher due to a change in the reading public's tastes.
The turning point for Pym came with a famous article in the 1975 Times Literary Supplement in which two prominent names, Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin, nominated her as the most underrated writer of the century. Pym and Larkin had kept up a private correspondence over a period of many years. Her comeback novel, Quartet in Autumn, was nominated for the Booker Prize. Another novel, The Sweet Dove Died, previously rejected by many publishers, was subsequently published to critical acclaim, and several of her previously unpublished novels were published after her death.
Pym worked at the International African Institute in London for some years, and played a large part in the editing of its scholarly journal, Africa, hence the frequency with which anthropologists crop up in her novels. She never married, despite several close relationships with men, notably Henry Harvey, a fellow Oxford student, and the future politician, Julian Amery. After her retirement, she moved into Barn Cottage at Finstock in Oxfordshire with her younger sister, Hilary, who continued to live there until her death in February 2005. A blue plaque was placed on the cottage in 2006. The sisters played an active role in the social life of the village.
Several strong themes link the works in the Pym "canon", which are more notable for their style and characterisation than for their plots. A superficial reading gives the impression that they are sketches of village or suburban life, with excessive significance being attached to social activities connected with the Anglican church (in particular its Anglo-Catholic incarnation). However, the dialogue is often deeply ironic, and a tragic undercurrent runs through some of the later novels, especially Quartet in Autumn and The Sweet Dove Died.
After studying English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, Barbara Pym served in the Women's Royal Naval Service during World War II. From 1950 to 1961, she published six novels, but her 7th was declined by the publisher due to a change in the reading public's tastes.
The turning point for Pym came with a famous article in the 1975 Times Literary Supplement in which two prominent names, Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin, nominated her as the most underrated writer of the century. Pym and Larkin had kept up a private correspondence over a period of many years. Her comeback novel, Quartet in Autumn, was nominated for the Booker Prize. Another novel, The Sweet Dove Died, previously rejected by many publishers, was subsequently published to critical acclaim, and several of her previously unpublished novels were published after her death.
Pym worked at the International African Institute in London for some years, and played a large part in the editing of its scholarly journal, Africa, hence the frequency with which anthropologists crop up in her novels. She never married, despite several close relationships with men, notably Henry Harvey, a fellow Oxford student, and the future politician, Julian Amery. After her retirement, she moved into Barn Cottage at Finstock in Oxfordshire with her younger sister, Hilary, who continued to live there until her death in February 2005. A blue plaque was placed on the cottage in 2006. The sisters played an active role in the social life of the village.
Several strong themes link the works in the Pym "canon", which are more notable for their style and characterisation than for their plots. A superficial reading gives the impression that they are sketches of village or suburban life, with excessive significance being attached to social activities connected with the Anglican church (in particular its Anglo-Catholic incarnation). However, the dialogue is often deeply ironic, and a tragic undercurrent runs through some of the later novels, especially Quartet in Autumn and The Sweet Dove Died.
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July 29, 2025I read a collected edition of three of Barbara Pym's books years ago, and though I remember them with affection, few details stayed with me beyond merged vignettes of afternoon teas, needlework, and worthy clergymen being doted upon by 'excellent' spinsters, much to the amusement of the clergymen's wives: 'Of course you've never been married,' she said, putting me in my place amongst the rows of excellent women.
My bookclub decided to read one of those novels, Excellent Women, last month so I reread it, along with another of the Pym novels in my collected edition, Some Tame Gazelle. That was a mistake because the two books merged together all over again. By the time the bookgroup took place, I could remember the afternoon teas and the needlework and the clergymen, all written with delicious if genteel sarcasm, but which plot belonged in which book, I wasn't certain.
That made me wonder about Barbara Pym as a writer. What was it that caused her to restrict her incisive needle to such a narrow cloth. She was born in 1913 which might explain it, but then again, I've read many of her contemporaries and not one of them worked on such a 'tiny piece of ivory', to paraphrase the often used description of the contained world of Jane Austen's novels, to which Pym's are sometimes compared. 'August 1969: Visit to Jane Austen’s house. I put my hand down on Jane’s desk and bring it up covered with dust. Oh that some of her genius might rub off on me.' In that diary extract, Pym goes on to wonder about the caretaker's housekeeping habits which made me smile because it is a very 'Excellent Women' kind of remark.
In any case, I became so curious as to why such a fluent writer never varied her style or experimented in any way that I tracked down this 1984 edition of A Very Private Eye, resisting the recent Pym biography in favour of going straight to the source: this volume of diary extracts and letters assembled for publication by her sister Hilary after Pym died in 1980.
The diary entries are scrappy, clearly not written for publication, and the letters are quite scrappy too, but they are very unusual. They reveal a writer who was more than capable of varying her style and of experimenting with all sorts of voices. She will break into dialogue between herself and her correspondent in the middle of a letter, or refer to herself in the third person in a very humorous, tongue in cheek way, quite like her contemporary, Stevie Smith. 'And Miss Pym is looking out of the window – and you will be asking now who is this Miss Pym, and I will tell you that she is a spinster lady who was thought to have been disappointed in love, and so now you know who is this Miss Pym. Well now, as I am telling you, this Miss Pym is looking out of the window, and she is looking into the field opposite the house, where there are many lambs frisking, it being spring, the sweet spring, when maids dance in a ring. But this Miss Pym, although she is, so to speak, a maid, is not dancing in a ring, no sir, and she is not frisking, no buddy, no how. She is seeing an old brown horse which is walking with a slow majestic dignity across this field, and she is thinking that it is the horse that she will be imitating and not the lambs. Old brown horse, she says, we have had our moments you and I, and she is singing in a faded voice an old song she is remembering and it is all about great big moments of happiness and such.'
Sometimes her letters begin to sound like a scene from a quirky novel, maybe in the style of other contemporaries of hers such as Barbara Comyns, Muriel Spark or Penelope Fitzgerald: ‘I see that the Reverend R.G.T. Gillman, rector of West Felton is to take the Three Hours service on Good Friday,’ said Aunt Janie. ‘Oh, that will be interesting,’ said Mrs Pym, ‘I have heard that he is continually crossing himself and saying ‘I am not worthy’ in the middle of the service.’ ‘We are none of us worthy,’ said Barbara in a low tone, spreading some Gorgonzola cheese on a biscuit. ‘Why here is Mr Boulder!’ said Aunt Janie, as the curate was announced. ‘How is your fiancée?’ asked Barbara in an open tone. ‘She is better, thank you,’ said Oswald. ‘How old is she? She is older than I am, is she not?’ asked Barbara in an eager tone. ‘Yes, she is older than you are,’ said Oswald in a guarded tone. That was the gist of a conversation I had with the curate when he dropped in to tea last week. He and Miss Carfax are to be married in the summer, just fancy, a real curate’s wedding in Oswestry. They say he is to be married in a cassock. Oh, fancy!'
Or the letter may suddenly veer into stream of consciousness writing as in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. In fact there is a diary entry about reading Mrs Dalloway in which Pym says, 'I could do that..'
Much of the correspondence is to the male friends she made at Oxford and to whom she continued writing for years, one of whom was a man called Henry Harvey. Barbara was besotted with Henry but, although they were lovers, he chose to marry someone else. She then began writing to Henry's wife though she'd never met her, and the letters to the couple are among the most unusual of the collection (the extracts above are from her correspondence with them).
Pym's love affair with Henry Harvey became the subject of the first book she wrote in 1935, aged twenty-two: Some Tame Gazelle. In it, Barbara imagines herself and her sister Hilary, plus all the friends they then had at Oxford, living in a village thirty years in the future. She and her sister are depicted as the unmarried sisters Belinda and Harriet who live together, which turned out to be how she and her sister Hilary really did live thirty years later. Henry Harvey is transformed into the local Archdeacon who preaches very erudite sermons. As in Pym's real life, Belinda has been in love with the Archdeacon ever since their Oxford days even though he is now married to someone else, but satisfyingly for Belinda, it is not a happy union—which is how the real Henry's marriage eventually turned out too.
All the other characters are based on real life friends as well, such as the writer Robert Liddell. Finding out the facts behind the fiction made that book much more interesting for me in retrospect. And I realised that Pym reused the Archdeacon character in her 1952 novel, Excellent Women, though this time his very erudite sermons are admitted to be also very boring.
Another group of letters record her long correspondence with the poet Philip Larkin although the two didn't meet in person until close to the end of her life. He was in charge of the library at the University of Hull, and one of her diary entries mentions a particular letter—in a tone that is far from her prim Excellent Women voice: 'He sent me a photograph of his new Library extension. Was ever a stranger photo sent by a man to a woman (in a novel she might be disappointed).'
However, most of the letters to Larkin concern the sobering fact of Pym's difficulties getting published. It took fifteen years to get her first novel accepted. She was briefly popular after that and three more novels came out in quick succession during the nineteen fifties but then the publishing houses began to refuse her later novels, 'good but unpublishable at the present time' being the typical response during the sixties and into the seventies. She knew she should vary her plots to suit the changing times and did try: 'I am still going on with something, trying to make it less cosy without actually putting in the kind of thing that would be beyond my range.'
Eventually, with Philip Larkin's help, there was a revival of interest in her work and Quartet in Autumn was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1977, causing her earlier books to be reissued and the unpublished ones to finally get accepted. The last three years before she died in 1980 were brightened by this belated success but darkened by illness though she was capable of quiet humour even about that. 'Morning spent at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. O little lump – almost a subject for a metaphysical poem...'
Her sister, writing a postscript to this book, says, 'Early in January 1980 Barbara's condition worsened and she was admitted to the hospice, taking with her her final notebook. Henry Harvey, visiting her on January 8th, found her wit and her courage undiminished. It seemed, somehow, fitting that almost the last visitor 'Belinda' had should be the 'Archdeacon'. Within a week, on January 11th, she died.'
My bookclub decided to read one of those novels, Excellent Women, last month so I reread it, along with another of the Pym novels in my collected edition, Some Tame Gazelle. That was a mistake because the two books merged together all over again. By the time the bookgroup took place, I could remember the afternoon teas and the needlework and the clergymen, all written with delicious if genteel sarcasm, but which plot belonged in which book, I wasn't certain.
That made me wonder about Barbara Pym as a writer. What was it that caused her to restrict her incisive needle to such a narrow cloth. She was born in 1913 which might explain it, but then again, I've read many of her contemporaries and not one of them worked on such a 'tiny piece of ivory', to paraphrase the often used description of the contained world of Jane Austen's novels, to which Pym's are sometimes compared. 'August 1969: Visit to Jane Austen’s house. I put my hand down on Jane’s desk and bring it up covered with dust. Oh that some of her genius might rub off on me.' In that diary extract, Pym goes on to wonder about the caretaker's housekeeping habits which made me smile because it is a very 'Excellent Women' kind of remark.
In any case, I became so curious as to why such a fluent writer never varied her style or experimented in any way that I tracked down this 1984 edition of A Very Private Eye, resisting the recent Pym biography in favour of going straight to the source: this volume of diary extracts and letters assembled for publication by her sister Hilary after Pym died in 1980.
The diary entries are scrappy, clearly not written for publication, and the letters are quite scrappy too, but they are very unusual. They reveal a writer who was more than capable of varying her style and of experimenting with all sorts of voices. She will break into dialogue between herself and her correspondent in the middle of a letter, or refer to herself in the third person in a very humorous, tongue in cheek way, quite like her contemporary, Stevie Smith. 'And Miss Pym is looking out of the window – and you will be asking now who is this Miss Pym, and I will tell you that she is a spinster lady who was thought to have been disappointed in love, and so now you know who is this Miss Pym. Well now, as I am telling you, this Miss Pym is looking out of the window, and she is looking into the field opposite the house, where there are many lambs frisking, it being spring, the sweet spring, when maids dance in a ring. But this Miss Pym, although she is, so to speak, a maid, is not dancing in a ring, no sir, and she is not frisking, no buddy, no how. She is seeing an old brown horse which is walking with a slow majestic dignity across this field, and she is thinking that it is the horse that she will be imitating and not the lambs. Old brown horse, she says, we have had our moments you and I, and she is singing in a faded voice an old song she is remembering and it is all about great big moments of happiness and such.'
Sometimes her letters begin to sound like a scene from a quirky novel, maybe in the style of other contemporaries of hers such as Barbara Comyns, Muriel Spark or Penelope Fitzgerald: ‘I see that the Reverend R.G.T. Gillman, rector of West Felton is to take the Three Hours service on Good Friday,’ said Aunt Janie. ‘Oh, that will be interesting,’ said Mrs Pym, ‘I have heard that he is continually crossing himself and saying ‘I am not worthy’ in the middle of the service.’ ‘We are none of us worthy,’ said Barbara in a low tone, spreading some Gorgonzola cheese on a biscuit. ‘Why here is Mr Boulder!’ said Aunt Janie, as the curate was announced. ‘How is your fiancée?’ asked Barbara in an open tone. ‘She is better, thank you,’ said Oswald. ‘How old is she? She is older than I am, is she not?’ asked Barbara in an eager tone. ‘Yes, she is older than you are,’ said Oswald in a guarded tone. That was the gist of a conversation I had with the curate when he dropped in to tea last week. He and Miss Carfax are to be married in the summer, just fancy, a real curate’s wedding in Oswestry. They say he is to be married in a cassock. Oh, fancy!'
Or the letter may suddenly veer into stream of consciousness writing as in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. In fact there is a diary entry about reading Mrs Dalloway in which Pym says, 'I could do that..'
Much of the correspondence is to the male friends she made at Oxford and to whom she continued writing for years, one of whom was a man called Henry Harvey. Barbara was besotted with Henry but, although they were lovers, he chose to marry someone else. She then began writing to Henry's wife though she'd never met her, and the letters to the couple are among the most unusual of the collection (the extracts above are from her correspondence with them).
Pym's love affair with Henry Harvey became the subject of the first book she wrote in 1935, aged twenty-two: Some Tame Gazelle. In it, Barbara imagines herself and her sister Hilary, plus all the friends they then had at Oxford, living in a village thirty years in the future. She and her sister are depicted as the unmarried sisters Belinda and Harriet who live together, which turned out to be how she and her sister Hilary really did live thirty years later. Henry Harvey is transformed into the local Archdeacon who preaches very erudite sermons. As in Pym's real life, Belinda has been in love with the Archdeacon ever since their Oxford days even though he is now married to someone else, but satisfyingly for Belinda, it is not a happy union—which is how the real Henry's marriage eventually turned out too.
All the other characters are based on real life friends as well, such as the writer Robert Liddell. Finding out the facts behind the fiction made that book much more interesting for me in retrospect. And I realised that Pym reused the Archdeacon character in her 1952 novel, Excellent Women, though this time his very erudite sermons are admitted to be also very boring.
Another group of letters record her long correspondence with the poet Philip Larkin although the two didn't meet in person until close to the end of her life. He was in charge of the library at the University of Hull, and one of her diary entries mentions a particular letter—in a tone that is far from her prim Excellent Women voice: 'He sent me a photograph of his new Library extension. Was ever a stranger photo sent by a man to a woman (in a novel she might be disappointed).'
However, most of the letters to Larkin concern the sobering fact of Pym's difficulties getting published. It took fifteen years to get her first novel accepted. She was briefly popular after that and three more novels came out in quick succession during the nineteen fifties but then the publishing houses began to refuse her later novels, 'good but unpublishable at the present time' being the typical response during the sixties and into the seventies. She knew she should vary her plots to suit the changing times and did try: 'I am still going on with something, trying to make it less cosy without actually putting in the kind of thing that would be beyond my range.'
Eventually, with Philip Larkin's help, there was a revival of interest in her work and Quartet in Autumn was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1977, causing her earlier books to be reissued and the unpublished ones to finally get accepted. The last three years before she died in 1980 were brightened by this belated success but darkened by illness though she was capable of quiet humour even about that. 'Morning spent at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. O little lump – almost a subject for a metaphysical poem...'
Her sister, writing a postscript to this book, says, 'Early in January 1980 Barbara's condition worsened and she was admitted to the hospice, taking with her her final notebook. Henry Harvey, visiting her on January 8th, found her wit and her courage undiminished. It seemed, somehow, fitting that almost the last visitor 'Belinda' had should be the 'Archdeacon'. Within a week, on January 11th, she died.'
February 4, 2025
Read the Pym novels and use the "bio" as a supplement. This bio-letters book illustrates the special sensibility that consumes her life and who she was. She turned her own Very Ordinary life into literary Art, a startling feat. Her innate drollery, irony and stunning "perceptions" are used to refine polished novels you will not forget.
Pym (1913-1980) led, mostly, a lonely, isolated, boring life w her younger devoted sister (who survived a "cold" marriage [euphemism] and divorce). Despite her high Anglican Church ways, she gradually understood what exactly was going on sexually. Yet she transferred her observations and keen knowledge into a specialized literary style that sticks w you and overwhelms.
In her youth and at Oxford, she was constantly falling in love - usually w handsome gay men. By her mid-20s, she was describing herself as a "spinster." The touch of a male hand thrilled her almost as much as a cuppa tea. Pym never married or knew "real" beaux or had, as did Edith Wharton, a sexual consummation. (If so, it would be in her diaries & letters).
Wharton luxuriated in her celebrity-fame enflamed go-getter of both sexes, Morton Fullerton, but Pym was a slavey, sweet-plain editor who endured. Nary a complaint.
In 1963, after publishing 6 novels, she was hurled aside as "old-fashioned" by UK publishers and languished until 1977 when reclaimed by poet-scholar Philip Larkin. By then, after revising and reworking her "perfect" novel for 10 years! -- The Sweet Dove Died --the overdue praises began, although she was dying from cancer. She knew this and so do contemporary readers.
I recommend "Dove," w "A Glass of Blessings" and "Excellent Women." You must read Pym's chiseled comedies of manners. Like Pym, they endure.
Pym (1913-1980) led, mostly, a lonely, isolated, boring life w her younger devoted sister (who survived a "cold" marriage [euphemism] and divorce). Despite her high Anglican Church ways, she gradually understood what exactly was going on sexually. Yet she transferred her observations and keen knowledge into a specialized literary style that sticks w you and overwhelms.
In her youth and at Oxford, she was constantly falling in love - usually w handsome gay men. By her mid-20s, she was describing herself as a "spinster." The touch of a male hand thrilled her almost as much as a cuppa tea. Pym never married or knew "real" beaux or had, as did Edith Wharton, a sexual consummation. (If so, it would be in her diaries & letters).
Wharton luxuriated in her celebrity-fame enflamed go-getter of both sexes, Morton Fullerton, but Pym was a slavey, sweet-plain editor who endured. Nary a complaint.
In 1963, after publishing 6 novels, she was hurled aside as "old-fashioned" by UK publishers and languished until 1977 when reclaimed by poet-scholar Philip Larkin. By then, after revising and reworking her "perfect" novel for 10 years! -- The Sweet Dove Died --the overdue praises began, although she was dying from cancer. She knew this and so do contemporary readers.
I recommend "Dove," w "A Glass of Blessings" and "Excellent Women." You must read Pym's chiseled comedies of manners. Like Pym, they endure.
June 29, 2021
Barbara Pym, the mid-century English novelist, is forever being forgotten, and forever revived. Her novels sketch a circumscribed scene whose anchors were the church and the vicarage, and the busy, decent Englishmen and -women (more women) who shuffled between the two. To read her, one must have an appetite for endless jumble sales and whist drives, and the interfering wisdom of dowagers and distressed gentlewomen. (New York Times – 24 August 2017)
I confess that I had never heard of Barbara Pym and if it hadn’t been for the fact that I read a very good review on her that I decided to see what kind of author she was. This book, I felt, would be the appropriate vehicle as it is an autobiography in letters and diaries.
I feel there is just such an intimate view of an author with her letters and diaries and I always feel like an intruder trespassing on an individual’s space, with my eye over the author’s shoulder as I imagine her writing her innermost thoughts. Also the fact that Barbara Pym (b. 1013 and d. 1980) lived before the advent of the internet, mobile phone and social networking services, was another incentive to find out more about her.
These letters/diaries are not what I would call exciting, and can be somewhat pedestrian in parts, but nevertheless I have thoroughly enjoyed reading and slowly savouring them.
19 July 1979 - A pathetic sight in Waitrose: the elderly woman, very old, leaning against a frozen food cabinet while her friend (also ancient) went round with her basket. And, in the doorway, a clergyman stands, contemplating the scene.
To read about her life at Oxford in the thirties is like a breath of fresh air and she loved everything that Oxford had to offer. Henry Harvey (Lorenzo) was a great love of hers whilst she was at Oxford but regrettably this was not reciprocated. He went off to Finland and subsequently married a Finnish girl. That ended in divorce and he met someone else but Barbara always remained in touch with him and saw him the year before her death.
Her life during the war is described so well; and that in itself being an excellent reason to read this book. The only downside was her relationship with Gordon Glover, a journalist which had ended and left her rather distraught.
She became friendly with the poet Philip Larkin in 1961 when he had written to see if he could write a review article about her next novel when it was published. He also proved to be a lifelong friend and her letters to him are warm and informative. They gave me a really cosy feeling to read these.
Her views on death were also interesting on a subject that many people really don’t want to discuss but then you can if you are writing personal letters or diaries. It’s really a one way traffic.
1 October 1979 - As I’m not feeling well at the moment (more fluid) I find myself reflecting on the mystery of life and death, and the way we all pass through this world in a kind of procession. The whole thing as inexplicable and mysterious as the John Le Carré TV serial, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” which we are all finding so baffling.
December 1979 - (Still struggling on – perhaps a little better!). Another visit to hospital (brief) on 2 January (1980).
Barbara Pym to my mind was a courageous and remarkable woman of her time. Her biggest frustration was getting published. Cape published six of her books during the fifties and then publishers more or less deserted her. In all she had ten books published but it wasn’t until 21 January 1977 that an article appeared in “the TLS in which various people were asked to list authors whose works they considered under- or over-rated. And she was named twice as under-rated by Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil."
With the interest shown as a result of this publication, Cape reissued the six already published books during 1977 and 1979, which led to a resurgence of her books.
I’ve ordered two of her books, “Some Tame Gazelle (written 1935-50 – Cape 1950) and “Excellent Women” (1949-51 – Cape 1952). Fingers crossed I enjoy them!
The beauty of this book is that one can pick it up, and browse at any page, and I can continue to be delighted.
I confess that I had never heard of Barbara Pym and if it hadn’t been for the fact that I read a very good review on her that I decided to see what kind of author she was. This book, I felt, would be the appropriate vehicle as it is an autobiography in letters and diaries.
I feel there is just such an intimate view of an author with her letters and diaries and I always feel like an intruder trespassing on an individual’s space, with my eye over the author’s shoulder as I imagine her writing her innermost thoughts. Also the fact that Barbara Pym (b. 1013 and d. 1980) lived before the advent of the internet, mobile phone and social networking services, was another incentive to find out more about her.
These letters/diaries are not what I would call exciting, and can be somewhat pedestrian in parts, but nevertheless I have thoroughly enjoyed reading and slowly savouring them.
19 July 1979 - A pathetic sight in Waitrose: the elderly woman, very old, leaning against a frozen food cabinet while her friend (also ancient) went round with her basket. And, in the doorway, a clergyman stands, contemplating the scene.
To read about her life at Oxford in the thirties is like a breath of fresh air and she loved everything that Oxford had to offer. Henry Harvey (Lorenzo) was a great love of hers whilst she was at Oxford but regrettably this was not reciprocated. He went off to Finland and subsequently married a Finnish girl. That ended in divorce and he met someone else but Barbara always remained in touch with him and saw him the year before her death.
Her life during the war is described so well; and that in itself being an excellent reason to read this book. The only downside was her relationship with Gordon Glover, a journalist which had ended and left her rather distraught.
She became friendly with the poet Philip Larkin in 1961 when he had written to see if he could write a review article about her next novel when it was published. He also proved to be a lifelong friend and her letters to him are warm and informative. They gave me a really cosy feeling to read these.
Her views on death were also interesting on a subject that many people really don’t want to discuss but then you can if you are writing personal letters or diaries. It’s really a one way traffic.
1 October 1979 - As I’m not feeling well at the moment (more fluid) I find myself reflecting on the mystery of life and death, and the way we all pass through this world in a kind of procession. The whole thing as inexplicable and mysterious as the John Le Carré TV serial, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” which we are all finding so baffling.
December 1979 - (Still struggling on – perhaps a little better!). Another visit to hospital (brief) on 2 January (1980).
Barbara Pym to my mind was a courageous and remarkable woman of her time. Her biggest frustration was getting published. Cape published six of her books during the fifties and then publishers more or less deserted her. In all she had ten books published but it wasn’t until 21 January 1977 that an article appeared in “the TLS in which various people were asked to list authors whose works they considered under- or over-rated. And she was named twice as under-rated by Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil."
With the interest shown as a result of this publication, Cape reissued the six already published books during 1977 and 1979, which led to a resurgence of her books.
I’ve ordered two of her books, “Some Tame Gazelle (written 1935-50 – Cape 1950) and “Excellent Women” (1949-51 – Cape 1952). Fingers crossed I enjoy them!
The beauty of this book is that one can pick it up, and browse at any page, and I can continue to be delighted.
March 12, 2014
I've suddenly found myself enchanted with Barbara Pym's novels, and couldn't resist reading this collection of her journals, letters and notes, edited by her sister and her executor. Her writing and distinct Pymness in these texts is just as delightful as in her novels. She comes across as kind and funny, with a sharp wit and enough of a temper to keep things interesting; the kind of gal you'd want for your bestie. Along with, say, Emma Thompson.
The diary entries from her time at Oxford are full of strolls along the river with her beaus ("Much semi-nakedness to be seen"), luncheon parties ("the girls were too intellectual and didn't have the compensation of being of the opposite sex"), sherry parties ("very much as sherry parties usually are...noise of talking and a radiogramophone makes all conversation impossible").
On Henry, the handsome rogue she falls madly in love with: ""He has twinkling (but not pleasantly twinkling) eyes, like a duck's I think. And what a mouth! He is able to curl it in the most fascinating repulsive sneering smile... He talks curiously but very waffily - is very affected. Something wrong with his mouth I think - he can't help snurging".
Although she doesn't mind snuggling with the occasional German: "...because Anton was German I didn't feel as if I were being unfaithful to my real love. Somehow I could never take a German very seriously, but they are glorious to flirt with!"
And of course, her academic endeavors are dutifully described:
"An amusing lecture in the morning - Professor Tolkien on Beowulf [...] Spent the evening variously. I had to decide between giving my face a steam beauty bath and doing "Beowulf". I chose the former, and I think the result justified my choice".
As entertaining as her fiction.
The diary entries from her time at Oxford are full of strolls along the river with her beaus ("Much semi-nakedness to be seen"), luncheon parties ("the girls were too intellectual and didn't have the compensation of being of the opposite sex"), sherry parties ("very much as sherry parties usually are...noise of talking and a radiogramophone makes all conversation impossible").
On Henry, the handsome rogue she falls madly in love with: ""He has twinkling (but not pleasantly twinkling) eyes, like a duck's I think. And what a mouth! He is able to curl it in the most fascinating repulsive sneering smile... He talks curiously but very waffily - is very affected. Something wrong with his mouth I think - he can't help snurging".
Although she doesn't mind snuggling with the occasional German: "...because Anton was German I didn't feel as if I were being unfaithful to my real love. Somehow I could never take a German very seriously, but they are glorious to flirt with!"
And of course, her academic endeavors are dutifully described:
"An amusing lecture in the morning - Professor Tolkien on Beowulf [...] Spent the evening variously. I had to decide between giving my face a steam beauty bath and doing "Beowulf". I chose the former, and I think the result justified my choice".
As entertaining as her fiction.
January 18, 2013
Autobiography of perhaps my favorite author.
February 14, 2020
I'm now eager to read the rest of her books, and then I'd like to re-read those I've already read.
November 26, 2018
Highly recommended to read not just this book but also all the rest written by this talented author. I thoroughly enjoyed it
June 7, 2013
At the risk of repeating myself – I’m really rather bad at reading non-fiction. I have to admit that even when reading a non-fiction book I am really enjoying that there are moments I long for fiction. The fault is all mine, my mind wanders and I get, what I can only call the readers equivalent to the fidgets.
So bearing that in mind, I did enjoy this autobiography in diaries and letters, but there were moments when I enjoyed it more than at others. That is no criticism of the work – I must stress that – it’s my insatiable fiction brain; I do despair of my non-fiction attention span. I do think that reading about somebody through their own words – originally not written with publication in mind, is wonderfully illuminating. I read Hazel Holt’s biography of Barbara Pym a few years ago, and so there was a little bit of going over old ground I suppose – although I had forgotten a lot of it – but this was a richer reading experience because reading Barbara’s words was naturally much more intimate.
Each section of the book contains some brief biographical contextualising by Hazel Holt and a short section recalling their early life by Barbara’s sister Hilary Pym.
Part 1 takes us back to Barbara Pym’s years in Oxford, her friendships and heartbreaks – especially her long almost obsessional love for Henry Harvey – are recounted mainly through the diary entries she kept at this time.
“13th March (1934) Oswestry. My photos of Lorenzo (HH) lying in the punt came and I am so pleased with them – they are awfully good and like him too. I felt quite happy in the evening – I wish I could be certain that it would last. What a perilous thing happiness is!”
There is plenty of evidence of Pym’s recognisable wit even in her own diary entries, she clearly loved her time at Oxford, and kept in touch with many of the friends she had then. It was around this time – just after leaving Oxford, of course that Barbara began writing. She began writing ‘Some Tame Gazelle’ about herself, her sister and some of their friends as they might be in thirty years. It was to be however a long time before the book was to be published – thankfully Barbara Pym never gave up.
The second section of the books recounts Barbara Pym’s war; she joined the Wrens and eventually ended up in Italy. She seemed to find the idea of herself as a wren a bit ludicrous and speaks of soon being found out as an imposter. This section of the book is told through diary entries and letters from Barbara to her friends Henry and Elsie Harvey and Bob Smith. These letters are often hilarious – and demonstrate her brilliant sense of humour and ability to poke gentle fun.
The third section – entitled the novelist celebrates the years in which Barbara Pym enjoyed her best success. After 1948 Barbara Pym kept notebooks – in which she recorded in surprising detail her observations, ideas for novels and other day to day things. She was also still writing letters. Barbara didn’t write full time however – she did in fact work for many years at the International African Institute in London, undertaking similar work as so many of her characters. However Barbara Pym’s publishing success came to an abrupt halt in 1963.
“24 March 1963 To receive a bitter blow on an early Spring evening (such as that Cape don’t want to publish An Unsuitable Attachment –but it might be that someone doesn’t love you anymore) – is it worse than on an Autumn or Winter evening? Smell of bonfire (the burning of rose prunings etc), a last hyacinth in the house, forsythia about to burst, a black and white cat on the sofa, a small fire burning in the grate, books and Sunday papers and the remains of tea.”
During these years Barbara kept writing – she sometimes lost heart – but she never gave up – there’s a message in that for us all I am sure. Also during these years she struck up a wonderful epistolary friendship with poet Philip Larkin. In January 1977 the Times Literary Supplement published a list of under-rated writers, chosen by other literary figures. Both Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin named Barbara Pym (there was apparently no collusion) – almost overnight Barbara found her novels to be back in vogue. Thank goodness for Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil – but so sad that this final recognition came so late in her life.
Reading this autobiography during Barbara Pym reading week seemed very fitting, and I am glad I did. I certainly feel as if I know Barbara Pym a little better, and I feel sure I would have liked her too. I thoroughly enjoyed the sections of the book that dealt with Barbara Pym at Oxford and her experiences during the war. However I did get a bit bogged down in some of the letters to her friends – despite they being so well written - there were maybe a few too many – all saying very similar things.
(Apologies at this point to those who hate long reviews – I know some people do – assuming you have even made it this far –how does one say what one wants to in fewer words?)
So bearing that in mind, I did enjoy this autobiography in diaries and letters, but there were moments when I enjoyed it more than at others. That is no criticism of the work – I must stress that – it’s my insatiable fiction brain; I do despair of my non-fiction attention span. I do think that reading about somebody through their own words – originally not written with publication in mind, is wonderfully illuminating. I read Hazel Holt’s biography of Barbara Pym a few years ago, and so there was a little bit of going over old ground I suppose – although I had forgotten a lot of it – but this was a richer reading experience because reading Barbara’s words was naturally much more intimate.
Each section of the book contains some brief biographical contextualising by Hazel Holt and a short section recalling their early life by Barbara’s sister Hilary Pym.
Part 1 takes us back to Barbara Pym’s years in Oxford, her friendships and heartbreaks – especially her long almost obsessional love for Henry Harvey – are recounted mainly through the diary entries she kept at this time.
“13th March (1934) Oswestry. My photos of Lorenzo (HH) lying in the punt came and I am so pleased with them – they are awfully good and like him too. I felt quite happy in the evening – I wish I could be certain that it would last. What a perilous thing happiness is!”
There is plenty of evidence of Pym’s recognisable wit even in her own diary entries, she clearly loved her time at Oxford, and kept in touch with many of the friends she had then. It was around this time – just after leaving Oxford, of course that Barbara began writing. She began writing ‘Some Tame Gazelle’ about herself, her sister and some of their friends as they might be in thirty years. It was to be however a long time before the book was to be published – thankfully Barbara Pym never gave up.
The second section of the books recounts Barbara Pym’s war; she joined the Wrens and eventually ended up in Italy. She seemed to find the idea of herself as a wren a bit ludicrous and speaks of soon being found out as an imposter. This section of the book is told through diary entries and letters from Barbara to her friends Henry and Elsie Harvey and Bob Smith. These letters are often hilarious – and demonstrate her brilliant sense of humour and ability to poke gentle fun.
The third section – entitled the novelist celebrates the years in which Barbara Pym enjoyed her best success. After 1948 Barbara Pym kept notebooks – in which she recorded in surprising detail her observations, ideas for novels and other day to day things. She was also still writing letters. Barbara didn’t write full time however – she did in fact work for many years at the International African Institute in London, undertaking similar work as so many of her characters. However Barbara Pym’s publishing success came to an abrupt halt in 1963.
“24 March 1963 To receive a bitter blow on an early Spring evening (such as that Cape don’t want to publish An Unsuitable Attachment –but it might be that someone doesn’t love you anymore) – is it worse than on an Autumn or Winter evening? Smell of bonfire (the burning of rose prunings etc), a last hyacinth in the house, forsythia about to burst, a black and white cat on the sofa, a small fire burning in the grate, books and Sunday papers and the remains of tea.”
During these years Barbara kept writing – she sometimes lost heart – but she never gave up – there’s a message in that for us all I am sure. Also during these years she struck up a wonderful epistolary friendship with poet Philip Larkin. In January 1977 the Times Literary Supplement published a list of under-rated writers, chosen by other literary figures. Both Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin named Barbara Pym (there was apparently no collusion) – almost overnight Barbara found her novels to be back in vogue. Thank goodness for Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil – but so sad that this final recognition came so late in her life.
Reading this autobiography during Barbara Pym reading week seemed very fitting, and I am glad I did. I certainly feel as if I know Barbara Pym a little better, and I feel sure I would have liked her too. I thoroughly enjoyed the sections of the book that dealt with Barbara Pym at Oxford and her experiences during the war. However I did get a bit bogged down in some of the letters to her friends – despite they being so well written - there were maybe a few too many – all saying very similar things.
(Apologies at this point to those who hate long reviews – I know some people do – assuming you have even made it this far –how does one say what one wants to in fewer words?)
January 26, 2013
A Very Private Eye is a collection of Barbara Pym's letters and journals edited by her sister, Hilary, and her friend and literary executrix, Hazel Holt. As the spinoff from my online Trollope group (called otherlit) has been reading our way through Pym's novels, I've been reading my way through this collection, trying to stay at about the period in her life when the book we are reading was published.
In about 1970 Pym's publishers decided that no one would buy novels like hers and despite the help of friends in the literary world none of her books were accepted for publication between then and 1977.
She tried to stay hopeful for a time and continued writing but eventually as the years went by her writing slowed and she became depressed. "Every now and then I feel gloomy about it all and wonder if anybody will want to publish anything of mine again."
Writing had been the heart of her life. She always carried a small journal with her and noted little scenes in tea shops or standing in a line for a bus or at a lecture and worked these things into her novels. She still kept notes but fewer and with not much hope that she would be writing a novel into which to weave these observations.
For those of us who love her novels and find the author herself a charming and attractive woman it is heartbreaking to read of those years, her occasional mention of publishers who have returned her manuscripts, the fact that she has put away a nearly finished novel as unpublishable. It is especially hard to read of her slowing down and writing less and less. In a world where the best seller list was composed of John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, and Robert Ludlum it was difficult to sell a subtle, sophisticated, and dryly witty novel no matter how well written.
All of this changed suddenly in January of 1977 when a Times Literary Supplement article asking famous literary figures to name the most underrated novelists of the time. Only one author was mentioned twice, by Philip Larkin and by Lord David Cecil: Barbara Pym. Immediately publishers wanted to see her manuscripts, the BBC wanted to interview her, photographers called to make appointments to photograph her. Her next novel, Quartet in Autumn, was nominated for a Booker. Finally the worth of her work was recognized and she became well known. It was worthwhile to write again.
As we read these pages of the memoir, we know that she was going to die soon and would have very little time to enjoy this resurgence. She shined up some novels written earlier and she wrote another novel, but didn't have time to do a second draft before she died of cancer in January 1980.
The book is full of vignettes as she goes to tea with Lord David or attends church with a friend from college years. She says in a journal note, "I find it is pleasanter to observe these things rather than actually participate in them." She was an astute observer.
Before re-reading Pym's novels one after the other I hadn't really noticed all of the humor and the satire and the occasional cynicism in her work. We have just finished the last of her novels published before the dry years. Her darker novels are ahead of us.
In about 1970 Pym's publishers decided that no one would buy novels like hers and despite the help of friends in the literary world none of her books were accepted for publication between then and 1977.
She tried to stay hopeful for a time and continued writing but eventually as the years went by her writing slowed and she became depressed. "Every now and then I feel gloomy about it all and wonder if anybody will want to publish anything of mine again."
Writing had been the heart of her life. She always carried a small journal with her and noted little scenes in tea shops or standing in a line for a bus or at a lecture and worked these things into her novels. She still kept notes but fewer and with not much hope that she would be writing a novel into which to weave these observations.
For those of us who love her novels and find the author herself a charming and attractive woman it is heartbreaking to read of those years, her occasional mention of publishers who have returned her manuscripts, the fact that she has put away a nearly finished novel as unpublishable. It is especially hard to read of her slowing down and writing less and less. In a world where the best seller list was composed of John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, and Robert Ludlum it was difficult to sell a subtle, sophisticated, and dryly witty novel no matter how well written.
All of this changed suddenly in January of 1977 when a Times Literary Supplement article asking famous literary figures to name the most underrated novelists of the time. Only one author was mentioned twice, by Philip Larkin and by Lord David Cecil: Barbara Pym. Immediately publishers wanted to see her manuscripts, the BBC wanted to interview her, photographers called to make appointments to photograph her. Her next novel, Quartet in Autumn, was nominated for a Booker. Finally the worth of her work was recognized and she became well known. It was worthwhile to write again.
As we read these pages of the memoir, we know that she was going to die soon and would have very little time to enjoy this resurgence. She shined up some novels written earlier and she wrote another novel, but didn't have time to do a second draft before she died of cancer in January 1980.
The book is full of vignettes as she goes to tea with Lord David or attends church with a friend from college years. She says in a journal note, "I find it is pleasanter to observe these things rather than actually participate in them." She was an astute observer.
Before re-reading Pym's novels one after the other I hadn't really noticed all of the humor and the satire and the occasional cynicism in her work. We have just finished the last of her novels published before the dry years. Her darker novels are ahead of us.
July 10, 2014
I was disappointed to learn how much of her life energy was spent on an unrequited love who didn't seem to be worth her while. Over ninety percent of her journal was focused on him. So sad. However, it did give me insight into exactly why her books cast romance in such a dark light. She had been bitterly disappointed in love, and her novels reflect that perspective. It has made it plain, however, how important love was to Barbara Pym, in spite of her rather negative view of it. Indeed, her negative view was the direct result of her longing.
December 1, 2007
I read all of Barbara Pym's work several years ago. Very fun, cozy reading. I was so disappointed to have finished it all, but sometimes I go back and read parts -- especially when in winter if I'm not feeling well. They're like comfort food. Maybe it's all those solid women in their sensible shoes and woolen jumpers. Anyway, I read her bio and letters once I'd finished all her fiction. She was a women just like many of those in her books -- blessedly single all her life, held a good job for which she was probably overqualified and had a tight circle of friends. She had some trouble getting published because her work seemed old fashioned in the 1960's and 70's. She's often compared to Jane Austin, but I would also compare her to Evelyn Waugh (without the wicked edgy humor, though). Definitely mid-century comedies of manners with jumble sales, lots of tea, young curates and meddling neighbors. Fun.
April 22, 2012
As a fan of Barbara Pym's novel's, I wanted to know more about the author. Barbara Pym kept diaries throughout the 67 years of her life which gave insight into her friendships, her loves, her years at Oxford, her struggles getting published, her jobs, and her retirement years.
May 12, 2011
I liked it, but I really, really wished for footnotes and more linking editorial material. If I am a very, very good girl, do you suppose Hermione Lee would write an actual biography of Barbara Pym? Once she's done with Penelope Fitzgerald, that is.
October 19, 2012
I have enjoyed every book I've read by Barbara Pym. I liked getting to know her through her letters and diaries. It made me want to re-read her books. She faced her death with calmness and courage, very touching to read about.
January 14, 2008
If you love the novels of Barbara Pym, then this book will be something of a letdown.
May 4, 2020
2020 has become my year of rereading the novels of Barbara Pym, my favourite novelist - "favourite" in the sense of "speaks most to my soul", not as in "greatest" or "best"; I believe she would have appreciated the distinction. This is my revised review.
I rate this book 5 stars from the perspective of a Pymhead. I have many reservations, however, for the general reader.
After Barbara Pym's death from cancer in 1980, her sister Hilary and friend Hazel embarked on a decade-long project of ensuring her legacy. This involved the publication of her final work, as well as two other completed novels, four further novellas (collected as Civil to Strangers and Other Writings), a biography (A Lot to Ask: The Life of Barbara Pym), a cookbook(!), and this "autobiography", a hefty tome cobbled together from Pym's diary entries and letters. Ultimately they would also compel the founding of the Barbara Pym Society, which continues unabated in 2020 after both ladies have passed on.
Pym was a born correspondent, maintaining lifelong friendships via post and keeping almost 100 notebooks of daily observations and thoughts, both for personal contemplation and for future novels. A Very Private Eye is an undeniably intimate portrait of her life from an Oxford undergraduate in the early 1930s through countless love affairs, service in WWII, early literary success, the devastating years she spent completely neglected by the literary establishment, and then her late-in-life thrilling rediscovery by the public. Pym's entire oeuvre is thirteen books, so anything additional is to be cherished by Pymheads like myself.
Pym was always conscious of her own writing and presentation, and thus many of the diary entries read with a strong narrative sense. Friends would remark after her passing that she took seemingly ordinary moments and found the pathos or humour within - indeed, it is just that power for small moments that make her novels so rewarding. (During the early days of WWII, Pym sees two nuns at Selfridge's, on the hottest day of the year, buying a typewriter, and ponders what they may be doing with it!) For someone whose public image became "tweedy spinster", it is delightful to see twentysomething Barbara pondering that it's a bit "disgraceful" to buy colourful underwear, but she is bearing in mind it may be seen by some young man. Pym's life was not beset by scandal: she worked tirelessly, wrote well, engaged in several ultimately unsatisfactory love affairs, and retired with her spinster sister to the country. In that sense, this is a life portrait for Pym fans, and not the treasure trove of scandals and shocks we might expect from a life portrait of, say, Norman Mailer. But the small details - intimate and historical - make this a treasure.
Yet now I must step back. Hazel and Hilary's determination to preserve Barbara's legacy was aided by strong celebrity supporters (Philip Larkin, Iris Murdoch's husband John Bayley, and Jilly Cooper, among many others) and by the great public interest in her narrative. The stunning rediscovery after 16 years without being published; the surprising depth of her novels unknown to so many readers; the tragedy of her death almost 3 years to the day after the Times Literary Supplement piece that re-launched her career... it was a wonderful narrative that the public rushed to - especially the Americans! So the hefty nature of this volume would have made sense at the time. As an ardent fan, I can't complain; I cherish every page. But if I'm too be objective, I have a few qualms about this book, namely: the length, the lack of intertextual referencing, and the assumptions made. All of which (outlined below) can be traced back to the core problem: is this a book only for obsessives, or is this an all-purpose autobiography?
Simply put, Hazel and Hilary either were unable to be objective, or they simply made the decision that only Pym lifers would commit. The denseness of the Oxford and WWII sections becomes tiring even for a seasoned reader; the historical details are very interesting (among them an ill-fated affair with a young Nazi in the mid-1930s!), but in such numbers, they don't necessarily reveal enough about Pym the novelist, the character we have assumedly come to see. This is compounded by the near-complete absence of correspondence from 1950-1961,. i.e. the period in which Pym first became a published author. Perhaps - with working full-time and writing six novels - she had less time for writing on the side. It's an intriguing lacuna, but disappointing. (Another haze surrounds a young lover of Pym's named only "Jay" in the book; he was in fact the British Conservative MP Julian Amery, who was still alive at the time this was published, so perhaps this explains the ambiguities Holt employs.) In the later sections, Holt will often include letters from Pym to two different people recounting similar events, which suggests a determination to simply cram in as much Pymmian writing as possible.
On its own, the length wouldn't be a dealbreaker, but the un-scholarly nature of the proceedings is disappointing. A few footnotes to clarify things Pym did not note would be appreciated, from the small (did she pass that late-in-life driving test which is foreshadowed in several entries?) to the medium (her Polish acquaintances are said to have been making plans to escape to England in 1938; did they succeed?) to the large (I would have appreciated a note when, for instance, a major character from Barbara's youth is noted in passing as having died - when did they die? did they have any final correspondence with her?). Passing phrases can be frustrating, for instance when two of Barbara's former loves are noted to have died within "months of each other", but - although I cannot find an exact date for one of them - it appears to have been at least a year between the two deaths. And there are a surprising number of errors, one assumes transcription errors from the original papers. (For instance, Barbara is noted as visiting the lying-in-state of King George VI on 1 February 1952, but he didn't die until the following week!) There are clearly incorrect dates, name spellings, and other such throughout (some of which I confirmed via the companion volume, A Lot to Ask). Mine is a 1st ed, so it's possible some of these were corrected subsequently.
Most frustratingly, following from the above, is that the general reader - i.e., they who have not read all of Pym's novels - will feel a bit at sea. Holt digs out moments in Barbara's diaries where she notes an odd occurrence, which she will use years (even decades) later for a novel. But these instances are not footnoted, and all diary entries occur chronologically. So a short diary entry may appear noting an unusual person on the bus or a strange conversation overheard, which seems entirely arbitrary to the reader unaware that they form a scene from, say, A Glass of Blessings.
Hazel and Hilary, like Barbara, were "excellent women". I suffer - very unusually, for me - a sense of betrayal raising these qualms, but it is frustrating to feel a quibble of doubt when reading a note or a date. Still, beyond the surface-level qualms, this is a volume that I adore. I'm not a reader of biographies, so I don't know why I enjoy knowing that Pym's lavatory calendar one year was Shakespeare-based with an over-emphasis on Troilus and Cressida or the names of the final litter of kittens in the Pym household. It's all gold to me - but the world awaits a definitive, thoroughly-researched, literature-focused biography.
I rate this book 5 stars from the perspective of a Pymhead. I have many reservations, however, for the general reader.
After Barbara Pym's death from cancer in 1980, her sister Hilary and friend Hazel embarked on a decade-long project of ensuring her legacy. This involved the publication of her final work, as well as two other completed novels, four further novellas (collected as Civil to Strangers and Other Writings), a biography (A Lot to Ask: The Life of Barbara Pym), a cookbook(!), and this "autobiography", a hefty tome cobbled together from Pym's diary entries and letters. Ultimately they would also compel the founding of the Barbara Pym Society, which continues unabated in 2020 after both ladies have passed on.
Pym was a born correspondent, maintaining lifelong friendships via post and keeping almost 100 notebooks of daily observations and thoughts, both for personal contemplation and for future novels. A Very Private Eye is an undeniably intimate portrait of her life from an Oxford undergraduate in the early 1930s through countless love affairs, service in WWII, early literary success, the devastating years she spent completely neglected by the literary establishment, and then her late-in-life thrilling rediscovery by the public. Pym's entire oeuvre is thirteen books, so anything additional is to be cherished by Pymheads like myself.
Pym was always conscious of her own writing and presentation, and thus many of the diary entries read with a strong narrative sense. Friends would remark after her passing that she took seemingly ordinary moments and found the pathos or humour within - indeed, it is just that power for small moments that make her novels so rewarding. (During the early days of WWII, Pym sees two nuns at Selfridge's, on the hottest day of the year, buying a typewriter, and ponders what they may be doing with it!) For someone whose public image became "tweedy spinster", it is delightful to see twentysomething Barbara pondering that it's a bit "disgraceful" to buy colourful underwear, but she is bearing in mind it may be seen by some young man. Pym's life was not beset by scandal: she worked tirelessly, wrote well, engaged in several ultimately unsatisfactory love affairs, and retired with her spinster sister to the country. In that sense, this is a life portrait for Pym fans, and not the treasure trove of scandals and shocks we might expect from a life portrait of, say, Norman Mailer. But the small details - intimate and historical - make this a treasure.
Yet now I must step back. Hazel and Hilary's determination to preserve Barbara's legacy was aided by strong celebrity supporters (Philip Larkin, Iris Murdoch's husband John Bayley, and Jilly Cooper, among many others) and by the great public interest in her narrative. The stunning rediscovery after 16 years without being published; the surprising depth of her novels unknown to so many readers; the tragedy of her death almost 3 years to the day after the Times Literary Supplement piece that re-launched her career... it was a wonderful narrative that the public rushed to - especially the Americans! So the hefty nature of this volume would have made sense at the time. As an ardent fan, I can't complain; I cherish every page. But if I'm too be objective, I have a few qualms about this book, namely: the length, the lack of intertextual referencing, and the assumptions made. All of which (outlined below) can be traced back to the core problem: is this a book only for obsessives, or is this an all-purpose autobiography?
Simply put, Hazel and Hilary either were unable to be objective, or they simply made the decision that only Pym lifers would commit. The denseness of the Oxford and WWII sections becomes tiring even for a seasoned reader; the historical details are very interesting (among them an ill-fated affair with a young Nazi in the mid-1930s!), but in such numbers, they don't necessarily reveal enough about Pym the novelist, the character we have assumedly come to see. This is compounded by the near-complete absence of correspondence from 1950-1961,. i.e. the period in which Pym first became a published author. Perhaps - with working full-time and writing six novels - she had less time for writing on the side. It's an intriguing lacuna, but disappointing. (Another haze surrounds a young lover of Pym's named only "Jay" in the book; he was in fact the British Conservative MP Julian Amery, who was still alive at the time this was published, so perhaps this explains the ambiguities Holt employs.) In the later sections, Holt will often include letters from Pym to two different people recounting similar events, which suggests a determination to simply cram in as much Pymmian writing as possible.
On its own, the length wouldn't be a dealbreaker, but the un-scholarly nature of the proceedings is disappointing. A few footnotes to clarify things Pym did not note would be appreciated, from the small (did she pass that late-in-life driving test which is foreshadowed in several entries?) to the medium (her Polish acquaintances are said to have been making plans to escape to England in 1938; did they succeed?) to the large (I would have appreciated a note when, for instance, a major character from Barbara's youth is noted in passing as having died - when did they die? did they have any final correspondence with her?). Passing phrases can be frustrating, for instance when two of Barbara's former loves are noted to have died within "months of each other", but - although I cannot find an exact date for one of them - it appears to have been at least a year between the two deaths. And there are a surprising number of errors, one assumes transcription errors from the original papers. (For instance, Barbara is noted as visiting the lying-in-state of King George VI on 1 February 1952, but he didn't die until the following week!) There are clearly incorrect dates, name spellings, and other such throughout (some of which I confirmed via the companion volume, A Lot to Ask). Mine is a 1st ed, so it's possible some of these were corrected subsequently.
Most frustratingly, following from the above, is that the general reader - i.e., they who have not read all of Pym's novels - will feel a bit at sea. Holt digs out moments in Barbara's diaries where she notes an odd occurrence, which she will use years (even decades) later for a novel. But these instances are not footnoted, and all diary entries occur chronologically. So a short diary entry may appear noting an unusual person on the bus or a strange conversation overheard, which seems entirely arbitrary to the reader unaware that they form a scene from, say, A Glass of Blessings.
Hazel and Hilary, like Barbara, were "excellent women". I suffer - very unusually, for me - a sense of betrayal raising these qualms, but it is frustrating to feel a quibble of doubt when reading a note or a date. Still, beyond the surface-level qualms, this is a volume that I adore. I'm not a reader of biographies, so I don't know why I enjoy knowing that Pym's lavatory calendar one year was Shakespeare-based with an over-emphasis on Troilus and Cressida or the names of the final litter of kittens in the Pym household. It's all gold to me - but the world awaits a definitive, thoroughly-researched, literature-focused biography.
February 25, 2021
A mix of diaries, little notes, and letters (for which we don't have the answers). Splendid overview of her life and the material which went into the novels, and also interesting when her life brushes against people who are or who later became famous in other contexts. (For instance, "Jay" is not identified here or in the notes and index, but it is now known that he was Julian Amery, who was still alive when this edition was published). Some of the early letters are quite difficult to read (especially when she wrote in the third person, attempting to talk like a Finn because Henry, the object of her unrequited love, married one). There are some big gaps - diaries destroyed or not kept - and omissions. For me there is the added interest of knowing some of the places she knew and even to some extent following in her footsteps in both college and the world of the London institutions she was familiar with, from churches and institutions on the edge of the university to the Kingsway Kardomah. If she thought that the "new" buildings at her college made it strange to her in 1978 I can't begin to think what her reaction would be to its latest additions, but she might be amused if she could return as a time traveller to one of the addresses she mentions in Oxford, where a friend was lodging in the early 1930s, to see what had become of it by around 2000 when it was a notorious place and not somewhere you would go for tea! The end is of course sad but she seems to have faced her illness with stoicism, and how appropriate that the once beloved Henry should have been one of her last visitors.
April 14, 2025
This is a real curate's egg of a book - parts of it are 4 star, but most of it is 2 star, so I'm compromising on a 3 star rating.
If you're limited in time, I recommend starting this midway unless you are fascinated by teenage-style gushings over clothes and men. Pym seemed to be the kind of person who is never happy unless they are in the throes of unrequited love - not only is it tedious to read about, it also becomes very confusing, as she seemed to be capable of being in love with 3 or 4 different men at once!
Her writing becomes more interesting once the war starts, although it's still marred by the drama over her love-life, and I didn't find the book becoming fully enjoyable until the timeline reached the 1960s.
Overall, I found it disappointing. I enjoyed Pym's books, and always assumed that her portraits of desperate, men-obsessed spinsters were drawn with her tongue firmly in her cheek, but now it seems they were thinly-disguised autobiographies. I'm not sure I'll feel the same way about them in future.
If you're limited in time, I recommend starting this midway unless you are fascinated by teenage-style gushings over clothes and men. Pym seemed to be the kind of person who is never happy unless they are in the throes of unrequited love - not only is it tedious to read about, it also becomes very confusing, as she seemed to be capable of being in love with 3 or 4 different men at once!
Her writing becomes more interesting once the war starts, although it's still marred by the drama over her love-life, and I didn't find the book becoming fully enjoyable until the timeline reached the 1960s.
Overall, I found it disappointing. I enjoyed Pym's books, and always assumed that her portraits of desperate, men-obsessed spinsters were drawn with her tongue firmly in her cheek, but now it seems they were thinly-disguised autobiographies. I'm not sure I'll feel the same way about them in future.
March 11, 2023
An autobiography in letters, notes, and diary entries of the quirky eternal spinster, Barbara Pym. The title is apt, as Pym definitely had an 'eye' for the details of the minutiae of life. Many observations were just laugh out loud funny:
"--why is it that men find my books so sad? Women don't particularly. Perhaps they (men) have a slight guilt feeling that this is what they do to us, and yet really it isn't as bad as all that."
Her friendship with the writer, poet, and librarian Philip Larkin is revealed in lovely letters the two exchanged. He was a huge champion of her work and, with Lord David Cecil, was instrumental in her second wave of fame in the 1970s.
I admire how she never stopped writing, despite her publisher suddenly dropping her in at the dawn of the swinging 60s. A writer just doesn't. Essential reading for all Pym fans.
"--why is it that men find my books so sad? Women don't particularly. Perhaps they (men) have a slight guilt feeling that this is what they do to us, and yet really it isn't as bad as all that."
Her friendship with the writer, poet, and librarian Philip Larkin is revealed in lovely letters the two exchanged. He was a huge champion of her work and, with Lord David Cecil, was instrumental in her second wave of fame in the 1970s.
I admire how she never stopped writing, despite her publisher suddenly dropping her in at the dawn of the swinging 60s. A writer just doesn't. Essential reading for all Pym fans.
July 6, 2015
A fascinating and intimate glimpse of a writer who is (in my opinion) highly underrated for her subtle humor and dark comic moments. It was heartbreaking to read about Pym's long struggle with rejection as a writer after an initial burst of success, particularly in the midst of a cancer struggle. Her wicked humor emerges in her letters and diaries, particularly the dig at John Lennon's long hair as emerging from a female Victorian writer (I cackled at that). I've made it my new goal to introduce as many people as I can to Ms. Barbara Pym.
January 12, 2016
It took me days to finish the last twenty or so pages of this book because I didn't want to have to stop reading it. I so enjoyed learning about Barbara Pym in her own voice. I re-read all her novels before picking up this book (which had been on my book shelf for 30 years) and I enjoyed seeing how she put so much of her own life into her novels. And it's so gratifying to know that she received deserved recognition while she was still alive.
August 25, 2016
Reading Pym's diaries and letters was a great way to bookend the reading of all her novels. It was so wonderful to understand where she was coming from, who she was as a young woman, and to see how she dealt with the rejection and celebrations of her work.
This is a must for Pym fans.
This is a must for Pym fans.
January 14, 2011
The whole was more than the sum of its parts. Slow at first, it became moving to watch her life unfold in 334 pages of entries in her notebooks and letters to a few friends.
July 25, 2013
Very interesting progression from besotted university student to struggling middle ages to finally the poignant reversal of fortunes almost too late to be of any benefit.
Read
January 31, 2016An interesting life, though I didn't read every word. Want to read more of her books.
July 29, 2025
As the subtitle suggests, this is an autobiography of Barbara Pym made up of her diaries, letters, and notebooks. I wanted to read this first, before Paula Byrne’s biography, The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym, so that I could form my own opinions from the primary sources. The diaries cover most of Pym’s early life from being an Oxford undergraduate through to the end of the Second World War. These are interspersed with letters to her Oxford friends. After the war, there are bigger gaps in the diary. Pym then starts keeping writer’s notebooks to mark significant days and capture conversations and scenes, which she uses in her novels.
The editors, Hazel Holt (a colleague from the International African Institute) and Hilary Pym (her younger sister), add useful summaries at the beginning of each section. It feels like they have a light touch, but I guess their main influence is in what they choose to include and leave out. They respect Pym’s privacy by not filling in the deliberate gaps in her diary when pages are torn or cut out. (I’m learning that Paula Byrne’s biography, which I’m currently reading, explains these gaps and conjectures what they are hiding.)
Pym, as ever, is good company. As a student, she’s very sociable and gets involved in numerous love affairs with men, sometimes more than one at a time. However, she lets herself be taken advantage of. She has zero chill and develops unrequited infatuations. During the war she develops a sense of duty and female solidarity - although she again obsesses over an unattainable man. Then she joins the Wrens and goes to Naples for the end of the war.
On her return to London after the war, she gets a job, begins to write, keeps notebooks, and starts to publish novels. In the 1960s, she begins a lovely correspondence with Philip Larkin, which was how I got into Pym in the first place. This sees her through the 16 barren years when she went unpublished and also led to her renaissance with the help of Larkin and Lord David Cecil’s endorsements in the TLS. These last years are happy but cut short by illness.
This is a lovely way to learn more about a writer’s life: through her own words and private thoughts. It was a delightful read - particularly the letters to Larkin and the notebooks full of funny observations and mini scenes from novels. You really get a sense of her personality and how it developed over time.
The editors, Hazel Holt (a colleague from the International African Institute) and Hilary Pym (her younger sister), add useful summaries at the beginning of each section. It feels like they have a light touch, but I guess their main influence is in what they choose to include and leave out. They respect Pym’s privacy by not filling in the deliberate gaps in her diary when pages are torn or cut out. (I’m learning that Paula Byrne’s biography, which I’m currently reading, explains these gaps and conjectures what they are hiding.)
Pym, as ever, is good company. As a student, she’s very sociable and gets involved in numerous love affairs with men, sometimes more than one at a time. However, she lets herself be taken advantage of. She has zero chill and develops unrequited infatuations. During the war she develops a sense of duty and female solidarity - although she again obsesses over an unattainable man. Then she joins the Wrens and goes to Naples for the end of the war.
On her return to London after the war, she gets a job, begins to write, keeps notebooks, and starts to publish novels. In the 1960s, she begins a lovely correspondence with Philip Larkin, which was how I got into Pym in the first place. This sees her through the 16 barren years when she went unpublished and also led to her renaissance with the help of Larkin and Lord David Cecil’s endorsements in the TLS. These last years are happy but cut short by illness.
This is a lovely way to learn more about a writer’s life: through her own words and private thoughts. It was a delightful read - particularly the letters to Larkin and the notebooks full of funny observations and mini scenes from novels. You really get a sense of her personality and how it developed over time.
April 5, 2025
This is an autobiography made up of extracts from her diaries, her notebooks and letters she wrote over the course of her life. It could do with some notes. Not a lot but occasional footnotes.
It is a fascinating read and you can see how much of her work was influenced either directly by her life or by the observations she made along the way. The series of men she fell in love with who never seem to have reciprocated her feelings (or for significant periods of time.) Her frustration at the period from the late-60s to late-70s when her style of writing went out of fashion - from a publishers point of view - and she lost confidence in herself - yes, Jonathan Cape Ltd (or whatever you're now called) I'm looking at you - is pretty sad(?) Sad might not be the right word. Frustrating? Annoying?
But like with some the writers mentioned in 'Jane Austen's Bookshelf' it is easy to see her disappearing from view completely if it hadn't been for that 1977 edition of the TLS when Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil mentioned her in their choice of 'underappreciated 20th century writers.'
That led to her work coming back into 'fashion'. She was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1977 for Quartet in Autumn, which was her 'come back' novel. And I think she's been pretty much in print ever since. She's made it to Kindle, which is a temporary form of immortality (if there can be such a thing.)
There are nice insights into the literary world, into her reading, and just the life of a writer. I'd like to read a biography of her now - probably starting with 'The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym' by Paula Byrne.
It is a fascinating read and you can see how much of her work was influenced either directly by her life or by the observations she made along the way. The series of men she fell in love with who never seem to have reciprocated her feelings (or for significant periods of time.) Her frustration at the period from the late-60s to late-70s when her style of writing went out of fashion - from a publishers point of view - and she lost confidence in herself - yes, Jonathan Cape Ltd (or whatever you're now called) I'm looking at you - is pretty sad(?) Sad might not be the right word. Frustrating? Annoying?
But like with some the writers mentioned in 'Jane Austen's Bookshelf' it is easy to see her disappearing from view completely if it hadn't been for that 1977 edition of the TLS when Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil mentioned her in their choice of 'underappreciated 20th century writers.'
That led to her work coming back into 'fashion'. She was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1977 for Quartet in Autumn, which was her 'come back' novel. And I think she's been pretty much in print ever since. She's made it to Kindle, which is a temporary form of immortality (if there can be such a thing.)
There are nice insights into the literary world, into her reading, and just the life of a writer. I'd like to read a biography of her now - probably starting with 'The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym' by Paula Byrne.
September 25, 2019
Barbara Pym's autobiography - told in a mix of letters and journal entries, with some short background entries provided by the editors (one of them her sister, the other a close co-worker) - is just the thing if you've fallen in love with her quirky and unusual novels. The entries are organised by her Oxford years, the war years, her publication years (in which she published 6 novels), the years in which she was unable to publish, and the final few years of her life in which she was 'rediscovered' and published two more novels (others followed posthumously). Her voice, her ability to find humour in almost any situation, and her quirky view of the world are all present in her writing, but are grounded by very real tempests, which include heart-breaking love affairs, the upheavals of WWII, some serious health struggles, and of course her inability to get published for many years.
One message comes through strongly, and that is her belief in her skills and abilities, and her unwillingness to bend her perspective to changes in public taste. It's a critical message for anyone who creates.
One message comes through strongly, and that is her belief in her skills and abilities, and her unwillingness to bend her perspective to changes in public taste. It's a critical message for anyone who creates.
July 2, 2020
I've read and enjoyed a few of her novels and mean to read more. Writers' diaries and memoirs are probably my favourite type of read, so this was a sure thing for me. I'm working my way through journals and memoirs that I discovered in the diary anthology, 'The Assassin's Cloak'. Alright, so this wasn't the most interesting life that was ever led. She spent most of it, I felt, waiting to be loved back and, then, waiting to be published once more, following a burst of success around her first six novels. But, lordy, how I admired her loyalty to writing. All through those bleak years, when every publisher rejected anything she sent them, she continued to sit down and begin another novel. And another one after that.
The letters to Larkin are an important addition as they prove that her life wasn't all that bad. Without them, this might have been a much gloomier read. As a writer, I loved seeing how a single article in the Times Literary Supplement transformed her career. A pity, it didn't come sooner but, anyway, she certainly made the most of it and enjoyed being back in the limelight once more.
The letters to Larkin are an important addition as they prove that her life wasn't all that bad. Without them, this might have been a much gloomier read. As a writer, I loved seeing how a single article in the Times Literary Supplement transformed her career. A pity, it didn't come sooner but, anyway, she certainly made the most of it and enjoyed being back in the limelight once more.
June 25, 2024
This goes through from her starting at Oxford University, St Hildas of course due to the times, at the age of 18 to her death at 68. You many wonder why her sister thought it ok to revieal her diaries and some letters but it does seem that Barbara wanted them made public, they are written in a way that is almost novel like. Lots of bearing her feelings and thoughts, but I get the impression what she writes is what she was in life, she was as you saw her.
It's interesting more than just her life as she gives so many details of things around her and you find out about what it was like going to the doctors or shopping and what it was like seeing well known buildings pulled down to build more modern ones, the changes around her. There are lots of snippets about well known authors and what she thought of their books as well as what she thought as the changing tastes of readers.
She was an excellent woman, very stoical and I can imagine fun to spend time with.
It's interesting more than just her life as she gives so many details of things around her and you find out about what it was like going to the doctors or shopping and what it was like seeing well known buildings pulled down to build more modern ones, the changes around her. There are lots of snippets about well known authors and what she thought of their books as well as what she thought as the changing tastes of readers.
She was an excellent woman, very stoical and I can imagine fun to spend time with.
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