 First edition | |
| Author | Barbara Pym |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
Publication date | 1953 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 222 pp (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | 978-1-84408-449-4 [1] |
| OCLC | 166627476 |
Jane and Prudence is the third novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1953.
Jane Cleveland, aged 41, is married to a clergyman who has recently taken on a new parish in an English village. [2] Their daughter Flora is to follow in her mother’s footsteps in the autumn by studying English at the same Oxford college. Jane’s friend and former student Prudence Bates, aged 29, lives in London. She is famous for her love affairs but currently has an imponderable attraction to Arthur Grampian, her older, married boss, the head of an unspecified academic foundation. Jane would like to see Prudence married, and thinks she has found a suitable candidate in Fabian Driver, a handsome, fortyish widower who lives in the village and is known to have been habitually unfaithful to his late wife. She invites Prudence to stay for a weekend, knowing that she will meet Fabian at a village event. Prudence and Fabian begin to see each other in London and the romance seems to be going well.
There is, however, competition for Fabian: his next-door neighbours are the domineering Miss Doggett and her paid companion Jessie Morrow, who has long loved him and seeks escape from her lowly situation. One evening, Jessie pays him an unannounced visit and they are soon pursuing a clandestine relationship on her evenings off.
Prudence visits the Clevelands again, at the same time as Flora and her undergraduate boyfriend Paul. Fabian greets her enthusiastically when he comes to dinner at the vicarage, but does not seek any time with her alone during the rest of her time there, so the weekend is a disappointing one for Prudence.
Matters come to a head when Miss Doggett guesses that there is something between Fabian and Jessie and tells Jane of her suspicions; they find the pair at Fabian’s house and they confirm that they are to be married. Jane offers to write to Prudence, and Fabian says he will too.
Prudence is very upset: she is not used to being rejected. She is consoled to some extent by the attentions and friendship of a colleague, Geoffrey Manifold, whom she had previously not had much time for but whose kindness she now recognises. At the end of the book Arthur Grampian finally asks her to have dinner with him; she turns him down as she is going out with Geoffrey, but life seems full of promise again.
Jane and Prudence was Pym's third novel, published by Jonathan Cape in 1953. Whereas Pym's first two novels had been successful, this received more mixed reviews. Literary figures Lady Cynthia Asquith and Lord David Cecil both championed the novel, but The Guardian felt it was "a horrid disappointment after Excellent Women" and the Times Literary Supplement remarked that the plot was "not easy to recall after one has closed the book". [3] The novelist Jilly Cooper regards Jane and Prudence as Pym's finest work - "full of wit, plotting, characterization and miraculous observation". [4] Throughout her life, Pym remained unhappy with the novel, commenting several times in her diary that she had not emphasised the "town and country" differences between the lives of the protagonists more effectively [5]
The novel did not sell particularly well; the initial bookshop orders from Cape totalled 2,300 [6] and the publisher had sold 5,052 copies by the end of the 1950s. This meant that the book had made money, but was not a bestseller. [7] Pym reported in 1954 that the publishers could attract no interest from American or Continental publishers. [8] The book was first published in the United States in 1981, after Pym's death.
The novel was released as an audiobook by Hachette in 2011, read by Maggie Mash.
Jane and Prudence was adapted for radio by Hilary Pym and Elizabeth Proud in 1993, with Julian Glover, Elizabeth Spriggs, Samantha Bond and Penelope Wilton among the cast. [11]
A second radio adaptation was broadcast in 2008, written by Jennifer Howarth. Penelope Wilton was the narrator, Emma Fielding played Prudence and Susie Blake Jane. Miss Doggett was played by Elizabeth Spriggs. [12]
Characters in Pym novels often reappear or are referenced in later works. The characters of Miss Morrow and Miss Doggett had originally appeared in an early unpublished work from 1940, Crampton Hodnet , which would be published after Pym's death. The character of Miss Morrow is distinctly different in Jane and Prudence, as is that of Barbara Bird, also re-used from Crampton Hodnet. [13]
The character of William Caldicote, from Pym's previous novel Excellent Women , appears very briefly late in this volume. Miss Doggett reports that Mildred Lathbury from the same novel married the anthropologist Everard Bone.
Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was an English novelist. In the 1950s she published a series of social comedies, of which the best known are Excellent Women (1952) and A Glass of Blessings (1958). In 1977 her career was revived when the critic Lord David Cecil and the poet Philip Larkin both nominated her as the most underrated writer of the century. Her novel Quartet in Autumn (1977) was nominated for the Booker Prize that year, and she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Excellent Women, the second published novel by Barbara Pym, first appeared from Jonathan Cape in 1952. A novel of manners, it is generally acclaimed as her funniest and most successful in that genre.
Quartet in Autumn is a novel by British novelist Barbara Pym, first published in 1977. It was highly praised and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the top literary prize in the UK. This was considered a comeback novel for Pym; she had fallen out of favour as styles changed, and her work had been rejected by publishers for 15 years. This followed her successful record as a novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s. As a novel, it represents a departure from her earlier style of light comedy, as it is the story of four office workers on the verge of retirement.
Some Tame Gazelle is Barbara Pym's first novel, originally published in 1950.
Dora Jessie Saint MBE , née Shafe, best known by the pen name Miss Read, was an English novelist and, by profession, a schoolmistress. Her pseudonym was derived from her mother's maiden name. She is best known for two series of novels set in the English countryside – the Fairacre novels and the Thrush Green novels.
No Fond Return of Love is a novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1961.
(John) Robert Liddell was an English literary critic, biographer, novelist, travel writer and poet.
Hazel Holt was a British novelist.
Less Than Angels is a novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1955.
A Glass of Blessings is a novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1958. It deals with the growing estrangement of a well-to-do married couple and the means by which harmony is restored.
Crampton Hodnet is a comic novel by Barbara Pym, published posthumously in 1985, and originally written in 1940.
An Unsuitable Attachment is a novel by Barbara Pym, written in 1963 and published posthumously in 1982.
Paula Jayne Byrne, Lady Bate, is a British biographer, novelist, and literary critic.
The Sweet Dove Died is a novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1978. The title is a quotation from a poem, "I Had a Dove", by John Keats.
Prudence is a feminine given name. The name is a Medieval form of the Latin Prudentia, meaning prudence, i.e. good judgment.
Honor Ellen Wyatt was an English journalist and radio presenter, known for her association with Barbara Pym, Robert Graves, and Laura Riding as well as for her own work. She was the mother of the actor Julian Glover and the musician Robert Wyatt.
Civil to Strangers and Other Writings is a collection of novels and short stories by Barbara Pym, published posthumously.
An Academic Question is a novel by Barbara Pym, written in the early 1970s and published posthumously in 1986.
A Few Green Leaves is the final novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1980, the year of Pym's death. Although several novels were published posthumously, A Few Green Leaves was the final novel she worked on.
Claud Gordon Glover was a British writer, particularly for radio, as well as some novels.
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