AN ACADEMIC QUESTION : A Novel (Posthumous 1st Edition, 1st Printing)

Barbara Pym (posthumous edition, Edited by Hazel Holt)

ISBN 10: 0525244417 / ISBN 13: 9780525244417

Published by E.P. Dutton, New York, NY, 1986

About this Item

Text/NEW & Bright w/folded corner tip to page 41 & trace soil spots to text block. Silver embossed bi-color lavender boards/Fine. DJ/NF; sound w/light surface wear & photo of author working at her desk at the Int'l African Institute in London, UK. 1986 First Edition, 1st Printing. An unfinished novel from English author Barbara Pym (1913 - 1980) who had left 2 drafts on her death --- a first-person narrative, and one in the third person. On Pym's death, her sister Hilary and her literary executor Hazel Holt consulted her notes & combined the two drafts into this posthumously published 1986 novel, narrated in the first person by Caroline Grimstone, or, Caro as she likes to be called. Young, 28 year old Caro, husband Alan (lecturer in African anthropology who never involved her in his work), and child, live simply in a small university town. As a volunteer reader to read to the elderly, Caro becomes a close friend of Rev. Stillingfeet, author of a noted but unpublished anthropological study, also on Africa --- a document competitively sought after by all, high and low, members (including Alan) of the Anthropology Dept. staff. Under much unresolved mental torment Caro chooses to help Alan, even if it meant stealing the manuscript! 182 pages.

Seller Inventory # 021288

Bibliographic Details

• Title: AN ACADEMIC QUESTION : A Novel (Posthumous 1st Edition, 1st Printing)
• Publisher: E.P. Dutton, New York, NY
• Publication Date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525244417
• ISBN 13: 9780525244417
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Caroline Grimstone, the bored young wife of an ambitious anthropologist, finds a cure for her tedium in reading to the elderly and becoming a party to her husband's purloining of an important manuscript

Reviews

Pym's reputation will not be enhanced by the publication of this edited first draft of a novel from her "silent years." Set in a provincial university, the story is narrated by Caro Grimstone, the dissatisfied wife of Alan, a rising anthropologist. Caro unwittingly becomes the means by which Alan dishonestly obtains a manuscript that will both advance his reputation and refute the findings of a respected, elderly colleague. Around this academic misdemeanor, the Grimstones and a cast of unrealized academic eccentrics revolve until the whole is resolved in a literal burst of fireworks. Absent is Pym's genius for creating characters whose concerns, no matter how trivial, engage the reader. Her fans, however, will probably demand the book. Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.