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Jane and Prudence
 
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Jane and Prudence (Paperback)

by Barbara Pym (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Virago Press; New Ed edition (6 Dec 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1844084493
  • ISBN-13: 978-1844084494
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 37,870 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #4 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > P > Pym, Barbara

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Product Description

Review
'This comedy of manners is a salutary reminder of just how good Barbara Pym was . . . This book is a gem - and a fitting introduction to this inexplicably neglected writer's work, for all those still to have the pleasure of discovering her' --The Times

The Times
'This comedy of manners is a salutary reminder of just how good Barbara Pym was . . . It is a gem - and a fitting introduction to this inexplicably neglected writer's work, for all those still to have the pleasure of discovering her'

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Jane and Prudence
78% buy the item featured on this page:
Jane and Prudence 3.7 out of 5 stars (6)
£5.99
Excellent Women (Virago Modern Classics)
9% buy
Excellent Women (Virago Modern Classics) 5.0 out of 5 stars (6)
£6.99
An Unsuitable Attachment
5% buy
An Unsuitable Attachment 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£5.99
Some Tame Gazelle
5% buy
Some Tame Gazelle 5.0 out of 5 stars (2)
£7.49
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
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2 star:
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1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars social satire and the fifities, 31 May 2008
A novel that gives the authentic flavour of the middle class gentility in the 1950s. If this sounds dull, it really isn't.

Her anthropological view of the society she is examining is so wry, pitiless but so humorous (She worked at the International African Institute in London for some years, and played a large part in the editing of its scholarly journal, Africa, hence the frequency with which anthropology/anthropologists crop up in her novels, and maybe foregrounds her social criticism.) The hopeless vagaries of men of the cloth as well as academics come under her scornful microsopic scrutiny. Her single women, devout and well-meaning, live lives of virtuous 'quiet desperation'.

Her writing is succinct and clear, hardly a word wasted. She has often been compared to Jane Austen, but she also shares the sharp eye of Waugh in a novel like "A Handful of Dust'.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Austerity aga-saga, 24 Nov 2008
By booksetc (London, UK) - See all my reviews
Ignore if you can the dreadful mass-market cover ... lord knows why Virago is trying to market Barbara Pym as chick-lit!
And ignore the silly introduction from silly Jilly Cooper. (Who needs a proofreader with a much sharper eye because she burbles along here about Jane and Patience when she means Jane and Prudence. A slip that one might more readily forgive if there wasn't an even more air-headed slip-up in her recent intro to Virago's Diary of a Provincial Lady. When she muddles EM Delafield's plodding, prosaic 20th century husband with the rakish 18th century founder of the infamous Hellfire Club.)
Anyway, leaving that aside - this is a pleasant, undemanding read set in a time when even the pauperised middle-classes had cooks and a woman to 'do' and could speak without any flicker of embarrassment about 'people like us.' Prudence's frightful admirer Fabian has clearly inspired many a cad in Jilly Cooper's own oeuvre. But what I enjoyed most are the wonderful descriptions of clothes ... Prudence's housecoats and her heady French scent, the name of which she can't pronounce, and everybody's greedy, post-war fascination with food, whether it's a casserole of hearts or oyster patties sneaked into a handbag at a party (But don't you just know they'd taste of glue!)
But I don't like Prudence enough to care whether this 29-year-old spinster ever gets her man. And I certainly don't agree with Philip Larkin's comment on the cover that he'd sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A World that is gone forever, 20 May 2007
By A. Hope "bookcrossing ali" (Birmingham, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Jane and Prudence (Paperback)
This is a wonderful book, a very English setting, and some very English characters who inhabit a world that is gone forever. Prudence is a character many of us can sympathise with, her past littered with disappointments. Her interfering friend Jane - who is much older, married with an almost grown up daughter, is keen to help her become settled. Jane despite her being a middle aged clergy wife is still wonderfully romantic, and it demonstrates superbly, how, no matter how we age, and take on various responsibilities, we still have the same concerns as in our youth. This is the second Barbara Pym novel I have read - and I am now keen to read them all
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars anyone for pyms?
If you have not yet indulged yourself with Miss Pym, then do so, if you like a leisurely few hours. She writes with humour and gentle irony. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Alisoun Francis

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Pym's best
I enjoy Barbara Pym's novels generally but she is definitely off form with this outing. Perhaps it is because she is describing the lives and (disappointing) loves of two female... Read more
Published 9 months ago by T. Bently

2.0 out of 5 stars Not worthy of the many reprints
Light and frothy, with very unbelievable characters. If you enjoy dated tales about 2 dimensional characters - this is for you! If not, try anything by Khalid Hosseini!
Published 10 months ago by Mrs. Helen S. Wilkinson

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