Between the amorous antique dealer Humphrey and his good-looking nephew James glides the magnificent Leonora, delicate as porcelain, cool as ice. Can she keep James in her thrall? Or will he be taken from her by a lover, like Phoebe . . . or Ned, the wicked American? 'A highly distinctive and - ultimately - charitable novel' Financial Times 'Faultless' Guardian 'Her Characters are all meticulously impaled on the delicate pins of a wit that is as scrupulous as it is deadly' Observer `A coldly funny book' Sunday Telegraph `Highly distinctive . . . the critics who have recently insisted on Miss Pym's too long neglected gifts have not been wrong' Financial Times

Author Biography

A writer from the age of sixteen, Barbara Pym has been acclaimed as `the most underrated writer of the century' (Philip Larkin). Pym's substantial reputation evolved through the publication of six novels from 1950 to 1961, then resumed in 1977 with the publication of Quartet in Autumn and three other novels. She died in 1980.