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Lead book review

An unsuitable attachment to Nazism: Barbara Pym in the 1930s

Vicars, tea parties and village fetes were a far cry from Barbara Pym’s early enthusiasms, Philip Hensher reveals

17 April 2021

9:00 AM

17 April 2021

9:00 AM

The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym Paula Byrne

William Collins, pp.272, 25

Novelists’ careers take different paths, and sometimes don’t look much like careers at all. It’s true that some start publishing between 25 and 35, and write a novel respectably every two or three years until they die, like Kingsley Amis. Others don’t start until they are 60, like Penelope Fitzgerald, or stop abruptly without warning, like Henry Green, or write one novel and no more, like Harper Lee.

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