Civil to Strangers

By: Barbara Pym, Hazel Holt - introduction

Narrated by: Deryn Edwards

Introduced by Hazel Holt.

When Barbara Pym died in 1980, she left a considerable amount of unpublished material. This volume contains an early novel, Civil to Strangers, three novellas and an autobiographical essay, 'Finding a Voice', Pym's only written comment on her writing career.

In Civil to Strangers, the lives of a young couple, Cassandra Marsh-Gibbon and her self-absorbed writer husband, Adam, are thrown into upheaval when a mysterious Hungarian arrives in their village.

©1987 The Beneficiaries of Barbara Pym (P)1987 Hachette Audio UK

Critic reviews

"A sublime social comedy.... It exists inside the Pym Eden of safety, silliness and a kind of subdued hilarity. Look out for one of her best curates—the starchy, spinster-dodging Mr Paladin — and a typically deliciously insensitive vicar." (Kate Saunders, The Times)

"Brilliant, hilarious, poignant and so very, very English." (Time)