by Paula Byrne
Smith, Stevie: letters in style of, 210, 214; Novel on Yellow Paper, 181, 209, 213–14
Smith’s circulating libraries, 489, 533
Sobell House Hospice (Oxford), 599
social class, 10–11, 12–13, 51–2, 61, 612; and Oxford, 24, 51–2, 474; and Philip Larkin, 51–2, 473–4; in Compton-Burnett’s novels, 183–4; and ‘Birkenhead refugees,’ 259–60, 262–4, 265–7; working-class characters, 263–4, 266, 407–8, 437, 462–4, 472, 490, 508–9; mixing during Second World War, 291–2; and the Wrens, 355–7, 358; Pym’s prejudices challenged, 366–7, 368, 370, 371; sharing of bathroom in Pimlico, 377–8, 402, 406; shoes as indicator of, 431, 479; in Less Than Angels, 438, 440; post-war blurring of hierarchies, 438; in An Unsuitable Attachment, 472, 477, 479, 481, 490; liberalism of 1960s, 486–7
Some Tame Gazelle (novel): life of the clergy in, 10, 127–8, 132, 133, 134, 154–5, 189–90, 390, 393–6, 413, 556; autobiographical nature of, 20, 123, 124, 127–9, 132–4, 152–7, 163, 393–6, 401; Oxford scenes edited out of, 28, 389, 390; Henry Harvey in, 100, 127–8, 132–3, 134, 144, 154, 155, 393–5, 414, 416, 599; Nazi scenes/themes (later removed), 124, 152–7, 161, 163, 217, 389–90; Pym begins writing (1934), 126; sister Hilary in, 126, 127, 128–9, 131, 155–6, 555; humour and jokes in, 127–8, 132–4, 161, 189–90, 395–6, 398, 413, 505; Jock Liddell in, 127–8, 133, 170; plot of, 127–8, 153–7, 221, 395–6; Jock Liddell impressed by, 127–9, 131, 133–4, 413; portrayal of clothing in, 128, 398, 606; sense of loss and waste in, 131, 134, 397; Nazi parodies in, 142; Friedbert Glück in, 149, 153–7, 217; title of, 150, 389; Nazis exiled in Africa plotline, 153–4, 302; Pym sends to publishers, 158, 173; Chatto rejects, 159–60, 161, 162; Cape shows interest in, 176–7, 242; correcting and editing of, 177; Cape rejects, 180; Pym returns to manuscript, 378, 383, 387–8; Cape’s ‘be more malicious’ advice, 386, 387, 393, 396; accepted for publication by Cape (1949), 388; added maturity/depth in published version, 390–3; new characters in published version, 390–3; and Pym’s proto-feminism, 404; Hazel Holt on, 412–13; friends’ reactions to, 413–14; critical response, 413; published (May 1950), 413; Philip Larkin on, 505; Library Association reprint, 532, 533; and Pym’s later life in Finstock, 555, 556, 558, 599; large-print edition, 565
Sonnenstein Castle (Pirna), 221
Sotheby’s, 524
Southend, 357–8
Soviet Union, 269, 327
Spanish Civil War, 206, 207–8, 215
Spark, Muriel, 572
Special Operations Executive (SOE), 311–12
spiritualism, 47
Spurling, Hilary, 184
St Hilda’s College, Oxford: formality/strictness at in 1930s, 3, 24–5, 26, 605; Pym’s arrival at (autumn 1931), 22–3; Pym wins place at, 22; location of, 23–4, 26, 83; motto of, 23, 599; Pym’s memories of, 27, 150, 254; Pym fails end of term examinations (1931), 28, 32; Pym returns to for final year (1933), 82–4; Pym’s final term at (1934), 112–15, 116–19, 126; Florence Amery as graduate of, 252; Pym attends lunch at (July 1979), 597–8
St Hughs’s College, Oxford, 297
St Lawrence the Martyr, Kilburn, 450, 451, 470–1, 485, 498, 511; declining size of congregation, 511, 543; closes down (1971), 549
St Mary Aldermary, Watling Street, 447, 470
St Mary Magdalene in Paddington, 549
Sternberg, Josef von, 92
Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 570
Stratford-upon-Avon, 76–7
Strauss, Johann, Die Fledermaus, 588
Strauss, Richard, Der Rosenkavalier, 588
Streicher, Julius, 141, 152
The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse, 389
Der Stürmer (Nazi propaganda paper), 141
suffragettes, 448
Sumner-Boyd, Hilary, 94
Sweden, 329, 585
The Sweet Dove Died (novel): and Skipper, 499, 502, 503–4, 510, 512–13, 518, 531, 534, 535–9, 544, 587; writing of, 502, 505, 510, 512–13, 517, 531; homosexuality in, 503–4, 534, 535, 536–8, 579, 610; characterisation in, 531–2, 537–9, 587; Larkin’s edits and suggestions, 531–2, 534, 541; feelings of rejection in, 531, 537–9; publishers’ rejections, 532, 541–2, 552–3; plot of, 535–9; cruelty in, 537–9, 544; homage to Henry James, 537, 538, 589; as Pym’s true masterpiece, 540; theme of ageing, 544–5; and trivia, 547; Macmillan publishes, 574, 575, 576, 583, 586; Larkin praises, 587–8; influences on, 588–9
Taylor, Elizabeth (novelist), 296, 420–1, 446, 496, 505–6, 529; death of, 563
television, 436–7, 477
Tennyson Jesse, F., 423
Thacker, Bill, 38, 46
Thackeray, W.M., Vanity Fair, 304
Thurn und Taxis, Princess Marie von, 519
Thwaite, Anthony, 601
Thwaites, Mr (British consul in Poland), 225, 248
The Times, 184, 571, 576, 585
Times Literary Supplement, 562, 570–1
Tolkien, J.R.R., 84
Tolstoy, Leo, Anna Karenina, 304
Tonbridge (Kent), 457–8
Tonge, Joan, 125
Topping, Rosemary, 26, 36, 84, 299, 340, 352, 359
Toynbee, Arnold, 571
Tracy, Honor, 116, 127
Trevelyan, Gertrude, Hot-House, 80
Trew, Mrs (mother of Countess of Longford), 158–9, 168
Trollope, Anthony, 605
Tutuola, Amos, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, 498
Twentieth Century Fox, 447
University College London, 382, 543
An Unsuitable Attachment (novel): Queen’s Park setting of, 471; Italian setting, 472, 480–1; social class in, 472, 477, 479, 481, 490; clergy in, 477–8, 481; and post-war London, 477–8; 1960s fashions in, 477, 478; Philip Larkin on, 477; characterisation in, 478–81; plot of, 478–81; anthropology in, 478, 479; rejected by Cape, 1–2, 481–2, 487–8, 489, 490–1, 496, 498, 500, 588; Pym touts manuscript to publishers, 489–90, 497; Pym revises, 505, 517, 518; Skipper reads, 508–9; Faber rejects, 518–19, 521–2
Updike, John, 596
Vanity Fair magazine, 465
Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, 470
Villa San Michele (Capri), 365–6
village life: Jane Austen’s villages, 2, 239, 413; and commercial circulating libraries, 17; in Some Tame Gazelle, 20, 127–8, 390–6, 413; in Adam and Cassandra (unfinished novel), 178–9; in ‘Beatrice Wyatt,’ 231–3; in So Very Secret (spy novel), 307–8; in Finstock, 555–6, 558, 559, 560, 562–5, 573, 574–7, 586; in A Few Green Leaves, 585, 592–4; declining influence of the vicar, 592
Virago, 608
Völkischer Beobachter (Nazi party newspaper), 220
WAAF, 282
Wagner, Richard, Die Walküre, 109
Wales, Joan, 502, 503, 536
Walmsley, Geoffrey, 36–7, 38, 39, 41, 42, 52, 76
Waln, Nora, 315–16
Walton, Sandy, 330, 331, 333, 339, 353, 378, 380
Ward, Dr Stephen, 487, 488
Wardell, Simon, 201
Warner, Sylvia Townsend, 349
Waugh, Evelyn, 17, 25, 158; Brideshead Revisited, 30, 31; Vile Bodies, 385
Wedgwood, Veronica, 419
Weiss, Roberto, 83, 113, 127, 174
Welch, Denton, 326, 453–5, 456–8, 461, 496, 499
welfare state, 486, 578, 579, 580–1, 592
Wells, H.G., 172, 180, 570
West, Mae, 88
West, Rebecca, 572
Westcliff-on-Sea, 357–8, 359, 362
Weston-super-Mare, 339
West-Watson, Alison, 95–6, 98–100, 129; in Some Tame Gazelle, 127, 128, 129, 132
White, Antonia, 413
White, Frank, 13
Wilde, Oscar, 89, 180
Wilson, Harold, 514
Windsor, Duke and Duchess of, 108
wireless/radio, 75, 269, 278
Die Woche (German newspaper), 116, 145
Wodehouse, P. G., 522, 605, 607
Woischnik, Hanns, 109–10, 111, 116, 117, 139, 217
Wol
fe, Thomas, 106
Wolfenden Report (1957), 490
Woman magazine, 583
Woman’s Own, 401
women: women’s movement, 2; at Oxford, 3, 24–5, 26–7, 64–5, 605; the excellent/splendid woman, 9, 173, 230, 344, 399, 402–10, 480, 606; increased literacy/education for girls, 15–16; ‘bluestockings,’ 65, 232–3; with red nails, 91; burden of housework, 173, 398–9, 404, 438, 607; beautiful women in Pym’s novels, 188, 190, 238, 403, 405, 408, 409, 425, 503, 544, 580; strength of character in Pym’s novels, 230, 239–40, 487, 611; older woman’s relationship with younger man theme, 235, 472, 477, 479, 480, 481, 490, 508–9, 531, 579, 588–9; and war effort, 257–61, 262–4, 265–7, 269, 274–5, 280, 282, 284, 289–92, 293–4, 302, 312, 324; and warfare, 278–9; Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, 359–60; Jane Austen on ‘confined lives’ of, 369–70, 441; battles between Pym’s women characters, 391–3, 429–30; Dior’s ‘New Look,’ 397–8; married women in post-war Britain, 398–9, 401; Pym’s proto-feminism, 403–5; sexually liberated in Pym’s novels, 424, 425–6, 427, 431, 490–1, 579; Ferguson’s The Brontës Went to Woolworths, 448–9, 450, 452; love for homosexual man theme, 458, 460–3, 490, 491, 499, 505, 534, 535–9, 579, 610; Pym’s views on ‘modern-day woman’ (1956), 458; middle-class woman’s relationship with working-class man theme, 472, 477, 479, 480, 481, 508–9; Pym as sexually liberated woman, 487, 554, 609–10; academic women in early 1970s, 543; once beautiful woman growing old, 544; Orlando Press, 549; #MeToo movement, 607; single women in middle age, 611; transformation of middle-class lives, 612
Women and Beauty magazine, 399
Woolf, Leonard, 106
Woolf, Virginia, 106, 571; To the Lighthouse, 304–5; A Room of One’s Own, 359–60, 377–8
Wordsworth, Dorothy, 347
Wordsworth, William, 66, 347, 589
Wrens (Women’s Royal Naval Service), 340–1, 342–3, 352–3, 354, 355–8, 359, 605; Censorship Division of, 362–3; Pym’s posting in Naples, 363, 364–70, 371–2, 588
Wright, James, 541–2, 574, 584
WVS (Women’s Voluntary Service), 258
Wyatt, Beatrice, 381, 383, 419, 434
Wyatt, Honor, 321–3, 339–40, 343–5, 349, 350–1, 353–4, 356, 357; as mentor/maternal figure for Pym, 321, 322, 335, 338; relationship with George Ellidge, 322, 330, 333, 339; divorce from Glover, 334, 343, 344–5, 350, 360, 361; discussions with Pym about Glover, 344, 350, 359, 360, 422, 431
Wyatt, Will, 575
Wyatt, Woodrow, 199
Yako people of Nigeria, 382
Yeats, W.B., 569
YMCA, 293, 294, 303
Yonge, Charlotte Mary, 340, 548
Yoruba tribe in west Africa, 412, 498
Young, Edward, 61, 612
Yugoslavia, 312, 313
Yuma tribe of Arizona, 382
Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to Tom Holt, son of Barbara Pym’s devoted literary executor Hazel Holt, for permission to quote from the manuscripts. The staff of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, notably Gillian Humphreys, Victoria Joynes and Nicola O’Toole, offered incomparable service, without which this book could not have been written. My thanks to Bodley’s librarian, Richard Ovenden, for his support for the project. Because I left Oxford in the course of my research, I relied on my research assistant, Felicity Brown, to photograph thousands of pages of manuscript in the archive: she was a wonder, to whom I will be eternally grateful.
It was a great pleasure to get to know the loyal members of the Barbara Pym Society (https://barbara-pym.org/). The impeccable research of Yvonne Cocking, gathered in her Barbara in the Bodleian: Revelations from the Pym Archives (published by the Pym Society in 2013), was invaluable. Triona Adams was very kind in first reaching out to me. Yvonne invited us to a delicious lunch (‘through all its proper stages’), and we had such fun discussing our love for Pym.
Linda McDougall was extraordinarily generous in not only sharing with me her filmed interviews with people who knew Pym, such as Julian Glover and ‘Skipper’, but also allowing me to reproduce photographs from her collection. Thanks to Deb Fisher, Jutta Schiller and Kathy Ackley for their support. I don’t think we will ever forget our Zoom chat and interview, brilliantly conducted by Kathy. Linda was also involved in editing our interview for the ‘virtual’ Pym conference that took place in September 2020.
Thank you, as always, to my agents Sarah Chalfant and Andrew Wylie, and to the team at William Collins: this is my ninth book for Arabella Pike, who has become the most loyal friend as well as an exemplary editor. This being by far my longest book, I am grateful to Jo Thompson for making some cuts and especially to Kate Johnson for the arduous copy edit; also to Marigold Atkey for seeing the book through the press.
Thanks to Harry Mount, for directing me to the wonderful article on Pym written by Prudence Glover for the Oldie Magazine. Also thanks to Dennis Harrison, owner of the much-missed Albion Beatnik Bookshop, who first introduced me to Pym. Sally Bayley gave her time and expertise, and we shared many a Pym joke over the years; tea and jumble sales often peppered our conversations. Julie Sutherland read the Afterword and gave very helpful advice. A conversation with A. N. Wilson gave me a fresh perspective. Jonathan Bate, always my first reader, read the manuscript, and suggested cuts and changes. Thank you, always, for your loyalty and care. The Bate children, Tom, Ellie and Harry, have been supportive and loving – ‘Are you Pyming today, mum?’ a constant refrain.
Stephen Pickles and I walked for miles in Oxford, and the surrounding countryside, in search of Pym. We talked and talked on Shotover Hill, where Pym once gathered flowers as ‘blue as Geoffrey’s eyes’, and we found her charming cottage in Finstock one fine sunny English morning. Pickles, one of the most brilliant minds, and one of the most discerning readers of Pym, gave generously of his time and his talent. This book is for him.
About the Author
Paula Byrne is a bestselling biographer and novelist. She is the author of six highly acclaimed works of non-fiction including The Real Jane Austen, The Genius of Jane Austen, Kick, a biography of Kathleen Kennedy, and Mad World, a biography of Evelyn Waugh. She was born in Birkenhead in 1967, the third daughter in a large working-class Catholic family. She lives in Arizona with her husband, the Shakespeare scholar Sir Jonathan Bate, and their three children. She is founder and lead practitioner of ReLit, the charity for literature and mental health. In 2016 she was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Her debut novel Look to Your Wife was published in 2018 and a further novel, Blonde Venus, in 2020.
By the Same Author
Kick: The True Story of JFK’s Forgotten Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth
The Genius of Jane Austen: Her Love of Theatre and Why She is a Hit in Hollywood
Belle: The True Story of Dido Belle
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things
Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead
Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson
Fiction
Blonde Venus
Look to your Wife
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower
22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
India
HarperCollins India
A 75, Sector 57
Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201 301, India
www.harpercollins.co.in
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCo
llins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com