Diane Thompson

Mondays, January 30-March 5 (not February 13) 10:00 a.m. - 12:00noon 5 sessions
Prescott House, 55 Beacon Street

Pym has often been called the twentieth-century Jane Austen. Yet for sixteen years her work went unpublished. It was not until the late 1970s that Pym’s work was published to the acclaim of fans and critics. During the 1950s and 1960s, a time of great cultural change, Pym chose to write about those who were overlooked in post-World War II Britain: single, middle-aged women living ordinary lives. Pym’s women could never be called trendy or glamorous in their tweeds and sensible shoes. They deal with aging and spinsterhood, and their worlds consist of church work, clerical jobs, and jumble sales. Pym’s women are at once recognizable and familiar. They are realistic. They are humorous. And they are memorable. In this seminar we will meet some of Pym’s excellent women in: Some Tame Gazelle, Crampton Hodnet, Excellent Women, The Sweet Dove Died, and Quartet in Autumn.

Diane Thompson

Diane C. Thompson is a senior library assistant and writing instructor at Boston College. She has taught classes on Barbara Pym for the Boston Center for Adult Education and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. She is also a member of the North American chapter of the Barbara Pym Society.