An acidly funny novel about a woman who falls for a much younger man by one of Britain's great writers of social comedy, now back in print.
A lesser-known, darker sister to Barbara Pym's Excellent Women.
The Sweet Dove Died, the most brilliant and incisive of Barbara Pym’s novels, depicts a woman’s attachment to a man much younger than herself. Beautiful and self-absorbed, Leonora Eyre has a passion for collecting Victorian objects and is coolly indifferent towards everything outside of her fastidious, elegant existence. When she is courted by Humphrey, a widowed antiques dealer, she disdains his advances, preferring rather the attentions of his twenty-four-year-old nephew James.
Leonora’s possession of James is challenged, however, first by Phoebe, a bookish young woman his own age, and then by the suave and seductive Ned, a visiting American professor with whom James quickly becomes infatuated. Barbara Pym’s sharp eye for comedy and shrewd observation of English middle-class manners are on full display in this finely wrought novel of love, loss, and all the hopes and disappointments that befall the human heart.
Barbara Pym (1913–1980) was a bestselling and award-winning English novelist. Her first book, Some Tame Gazelle (1950), launched her career as a writer beloved for her social comedies of class and manners.
Susie Boyt is the author of seven novels and the memoir My Judy Garland Life, which was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize, staged at the Nottingham Playhouse, and serialized on BBC Radio 4. She has written about art, life, and fashion for the Financial Times for many years and recently edited The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories by Henry James.
An acidly funny novel about a woman who falls for a much younger man by one of Britain's great writers of social comedy, now back in print.
A lesser-known, darker sister to Barbara Pym's Excellent Women.
The Sweet Dove Died, the most brilliant and incisive of Barbara Pym’s novels, depicts a woman’s attachment to a man much younger than herself. Beautiful and self-absorbed, Leonora Eyre has a passion for collecting Victorian objects and is coolly indifferent towards everything outside of her fastidious, elegant existence. When she is courted by Humphrey, a widowed antiques dealer, she disdains his advances, preferring rather the attentions of his twenty-four-year-old nephew James.
Leonora’s possession of James is challenged, however, first by Phoebe, a bookish young woman his own age, and then by the suave and seductive Ned, a visiting American professor with whom James quickly becomes infatuated. Barbara Pym’s sharp eye for comedy and shrewd observation of English middle-class manners are on full display in this finely wrought novel of love, loss, and all the hopes and disappointments that befall the human heart.
Author
Barbara Pym (1913–1980) was a bestselling and award-winning English novelist. Her first book, Some Tame Gazelle (1950), launched her career as a writer beloved for her social comedies of class and manners.
Susie Boyt is the author of seven novels and the memoir My Judy Garland Life, which was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize, staged at the Nottingham Playhouse, and serialized on BBC Radio 4. She has written about art, life, and fashion for the Financial Times for many years and recently edited The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories by Henry James.
