A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Diaries and Letters [ First Paperback Edition ]

Pym, Barbara [ Edited by Holt, Hazel and Pym, Hilary ]

ISBN 10: 0394731069 / ISBN 13: 9780394731063

Published by Vintage Books, Vancouver, Washington, U.S.A., 1985

About this Item

A very good copy of the stated firstVinatage Books softcover edition. The text is wholly unmarked, pristine, and the binding is bright and fresh in appearance, with minor wear at the extremities, and with a slight bump to upper edge of the rear cover panel at the spine seam. A sharp copy.

Seller Inventory # 016653

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Diaries and Letters [ First Paperback Edition ]
• Publisher: Vintage Books, Vancouver, Washington, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0394731069
• ISBN 13: 9780394731063
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

'Could one write a book based on one's diaries over thirty years? I certainly have enough material,' wrote Barbara Pym. This book, selected from the diaries, notebooks and letters of this much loved novelist to form a continuous narrative, is indeed a unique autobiography, providing a privileged insight into a writer's mind.

Philip Larkin wrote that Barbara Pym had 'a unique eye and ear for the small poignancies of everyday life'. Her autobiography amply demonstrates this, as it traces her life from exuberant times at Oxford in the thirties, through the war when, scarred by an unhappy love affair, she joined the WRNS, to the published novelist of the fifties. It also deals with the long period when her novels were out of fashion and no one would publish them, her rediscovering in 1977, and the triumphant success of her last few years.

It is now possible to describe a place, situation or person as 'very Barbara Pym'. A Very Private Eye, at once funny and moving, shows the variety and depth of her own story.