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Barbara Pym
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A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Diaries and Letters Hardcover – June 25, 1984

by Barbara Pym (Author), Hazel Holt (Editor), Hilary Pym (Editor)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 121 ratings
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Like new First Edition, First Printing (stated and full number line), Dutton 1984; a small manufacturer's crease to the front flap - GIFT QUALITY. The letters and diaries of an exceptional author.
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  1. Print length
    358 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    E P Dutton
  4. Publication date
    June 25, 1984
  5. Dimensions
    20 x 20 x 20 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0525242341
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0525242345
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ E P Dutton; First Edition (June 25, 1984)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 358 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0525242341
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0525242345
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 20 x 20 x 20 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 121 ratings

About the author

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Barbara Pym

Barbara Pym

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Barbara Pym (1913–1980) was a bestselling and award-winning English novelist. Her first book, Some Tame Gazelle (1950), launched her career as a writer beloved for her social comedies of class and manners.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
121 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

John
5.0 out of 5 stars Read all her books. A true treasure.
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2020
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Barbara Pym is one of the great unrecognized authors from the UK, and this is a shame. She had a quiet, productive, important life, but had the virtue of modesty and never tried to be noticed for being self centered or arrogant. An extremely talented woman who was a splendid writer, and her characters were masterful portraits of good, sensible people like herself. None of the modern nonsense we see so much nowadays. A real pleasure, and all her books are excellent.
9 people found this helpful
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AnandaK
4.0 out of 5 stars Barbara Pym--"drearily splendid"
Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2014
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Do you like Barbara Pym novels? Then you might enjoy this autobiography, which is composed of her diaries and letters with some details sketched out by her close friends. If not, this will seem like a burdensome book to read. It's long and a lot of the letters and entries are mundane. Yet there are flashes of brilliance, and I came away from the book with a deepened respect for the author, who lived her life with dignity and integrity.

I don't know if I could have had the perseverance that Barbara Pym had when it came to the period in her life when no one would publish her novels. This was after six of her earlier novels had been published and she had a following of sorts. I am one of her followers, though I didn't discover her novels until later on, after she'd had a resurgence of popularity. She was never a really big author; many people give you a blank stare when you mention her. But she had an eye for the comic and the strange in very ordinary surroundings (she was compared to Jane Austen, which she thought was overreaching). Much of her writing was based on her real life. Reading her diaries and letters is like reading the raw material for her novels.

She had an interesting though quiet life. Much of the stuff of this book is trivial--gardening, cats, sewing, having tea, etc. But then you also get glimpses into her love life which I can't actually say was tragic, but was disappointing. She had a "thing" in college for a man who seemed hot and cold towards her, but ended up married to someone else. Strangely, Barbara was able to stay friendly with him and others in their group. She even befriended his Finnish wife and learned Finnish. There was a shorter fling with a man who was in the process of getting a divorce, and this did not end happily for Barbara. She even burned the parts of her diary that referenced him during the time she was in love with him. The odd thing was she was living with his estranged wife--was good friends with her in fact--and his children at the time. She finally had to leave to protect her heart and joined the WRENS during the war.

So there was the wild, young Barbara who drank and partied while at "University"; and then there was the sophisticated Barbara who had an ill-fated love that drove her to the equivalent of the Foreign Legion; and then there was the more mature Barbara who loved her writing and lived quietly with her sister, two spinsters much in the vein of some of her novels. But reading all this takes time, and if you're not fascinated with the story that evolves from the raw material, you probably won't have patience for this kind of book.

Even though her life and times were so very different from mine, I often found I could relate in very real ways to this woman. The constant rejections from publishers--many that had published her before--must have been brutal. Although self-deprecating, she was always "drearily splendid" in her own words. I have not had that experience, but I imagine being "drearily splendid" is not such a bad thing as we get older and life hands us its challenges and disappointments.
19 people found this helpful
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Drcy
5.0 out of 5 stars Any Pym fan should enjoy this book.
Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2014
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I love Barbara Pym's books and this is no exception. It's sometimes quite funny, and it's interesting to learn more about Pym's life. I generally prefer fiction, but I found this quite enjoyable. This was easier to pick up and put down than a novel, so I read it over a longer period of time.
5 people found this helpful
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Kevin
5.0 out of 5 stars Barbara Pym Can Do Know Wrong!
Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2020
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This is essential reading for anybody who loves Barbara Pym.
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Janet Crispin
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent. Her writing is exquisite
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2018
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Excellent. Her writing is exquisite.
One person found this helpful
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Eleanor Herbert
4.0 out of 5 stars Very Barbara Pymish
Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2020
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A very needy but talented writer.
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Marlene Poor
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2016
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Enjoyable book.
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Grandpa M
4.0 out of 5 stars Good use of few sources
Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2013
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Barbara Pym did not leave behind her a large number of notes, letters, drafts, private journals, memoirs, and so on. Therefore it is good that the few there have been made available that also include some early fiction.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Moya Sharp
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in Australia on November 4, 2018
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As a huge fan of all Barbara Pym's books it was really lovely to read about her personal life and how it shaped her writing.
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Bonnie Bell
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in Canada on September 3, 2014
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The book was in very good condition.
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Pappashanga
5.0 out of 5 stars Miss Pym
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 13, 2013
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I read this after enjoying a number of Miss Pym's books. The fascinating thing for me was the change from youthful enthusiast for just about everything(especially handsome men) to more sophisticated as she reached her mid twenties. I find this part a joy. She portrays herself already as a 'spinster' and hankers after Henry, who sounds a bit self centred. But there is this caveat-we don't hear what he thinks of her. Miss Pym seems to be a woman who loved to enjoy herself and wore her heart on her sleeve. For someone so keen on religion, she certainly didn't let it spoil her extra marital sex. To be fair, she was usually 'in love', and by today's standards could not be regarded as promiscuous.
What sets her apart from hundreds of thousands of women was her ability to write . Life was alternately cruel and generous to her in this respect, She was published, although not acclaimed, then rejected rather callously by Jonathan Cape, then rescued by Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil. Finally she was a celebrity, and least became aware that she was a permanent part of English Literature before she died a cruel death of cancer.
She was a smoker, and I wonder whether this had something to do with it. She must have been fun to know, and I enjoyed this book just as much as her novels.
11 people found this helpful
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ravenswood
4.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2018
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As a reader of Barbara Pym some years ago, I found this very enjoyable, though there are limitations - Pym's letters are confined to Larkin and one or two others.Her earlier self, as an Oxford student, I found somewhat irritating. Later, she is more mature and attractive (to me). Her personality comes across strongly throughout, and her later years are sad, then lit up by the rediscovery of her work, then painful again as she succumbs to cancer.
One person found this helpful
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P. Ridley-Thomas
5.0 out of 5 stars A family view
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 2, 2015
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For people looking for an expose romping biography, this is not it, it is in fact diary entries , So it is an interesting social study from the time Barbra Pym attended university until the last days of her fatal illness, encompassing her days as a successful author , the time publishers would not look at her work, and her brilliant come back, Personally i have found the book fascinating because Barbra Pym is my first cousin twice removed, her mother Irena Thomas was my grandfathers aunt, so i am filling in family gaps with snippets of this book, Sadly i never met her.
I expect most people who would like this book may have already read some of her novels, thus the interest is already there, It will make a good companion to her already published work.
3 people found this helpful
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