INTRODUCED BY CLARE CHAMBERS

'The subtlest of her books . . . the sparkle on first acquaintance has been succeeded by the deeper brilliance of established art' PHILIP LARKIN

Wilmet Forsyth is well dressed, well looked after, suitably husbanded, good-looking and fairly young - but very bored. Her sober husband Rodney, who works at the Ministry, is slightly balder and fatter than he once was. Wilmet would like to think she has changed rather less. Her interest wanders to the nearby church, where she can neglect her comfortable household in the more serious-minded company of three unmarried priests, and, of course, Piers Longridge, a man of an unfathomably different character altogether.

'Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures' ANNE TYLER


'My favourite writer . . . I pick up her books with joy, as though I were meeting an old, dear friend who comforts me, extends my vision and makes me roar with laughter' JILLY COOPER


'I am a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN


'Her best [novels] are sheer delight, and all of them companionable. Quiet, paradoxical, funny and sad, they have the iron in them of permanence too' JOHN UPDIKE, NEW YORKER