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Less Than Angels
''Less Than Angels'' is a novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1955. Synopsis Catherine Oliphant is a writer of magazine stories and articles who lives with anthropologist Tom Mallow. Tom begins a romance with a student, Deirdre Swan, and moves out of Catherine's flat. At the same time, she becomes interested in reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has recently returned from Africa and lives next-door to Deirdre and her family. A sub-plot involves the activities of Deirdre's fellow-students Mark and Digby, and their attempts to curry favour with influential academics as they seek grants to facilitate the next phase of their careers. Tom departs for Africa, where he is killed during a time of political unrest. Deirdre begins to return Digby's fondness for her, and Catherine seems about to begin a relationship with Alaric. Publication history ''Less Than Angels'' was Pym's fourth novel and was published by Jonathan Cape in October 1955. It received muted reviews, in c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Pym
Barbara Mary Crampton Pym (2 June 1913 – 11 January 1980) 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. Biography Early life Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was born on 2 June 1913 at 72 Willow Street in Oswestry, Shropshire, the elder daughter of Irena Spenser, ''née'' Thomas (1886–1945) and Frederic Crampton Pym (1879–1966), a solicitor. She was educated at Queen's Park School, a girls' school in Oswestry. From the age of 12, she attended Huyton College, near Liverpool. Pym's parents were active in the local Oswestry operatic society, and she ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks in World War II, Tanks and Air warfare of World War II, aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in history, causing World War II casualties, the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Allied-occupied Germany, Germany, Allied-occupied Austria, Austria, Occupation of Japan, Japan, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By Barbara Pym
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning 'new'. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval Chivalric romance, and the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel. Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, and John Cowper Powys, preferred the term ''romance''. Such romances should not be confused with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1955 British Novels
Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first Nuclear marine propulsion, nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18–January 20, 20 – Battle of Yijiangshan Islands: The Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army seizes the islands from the Republic of China (Taiwan). * January 22 – In the United States, The Pentagon announces a plan to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), armed with nuclear weapons. * January 23 – The Sutton Coldfield rail crash kills 17, near Birmingham, England. * January 25 – The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union announces the end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941. * January 28 – The United States Congress authorizes President Dwight D. Eisenhower to use force to protect Taiwan from the People's Republic of China. February * February 10 – T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twentieth Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the Disney Entertainment business segment of the Walt Disney Company. It is headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles, which is leased from Fox Corporation. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributes and markets the films produced by this studio in theatrical markets. For over 80 years, 20th Century has been one of the major film studios, major American film studios. It was formed in 1935 as Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation by the merger of Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures, and one of the original "studio system, Big Five" among eight majors of Hollywood's Cinema of the United States#Classical Hollywood cinema and the Golden Age of Hollywood, Golden Age. In 1985, the studio remov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
No Fond Return Of Love
''No Fond Return of Love'' is a novel by Barbara Pym, first published in 1961. Plot summary Dulcie Mainwaring, thirty two and recently jilted, works on ‘the dustier fringes of the academic world’, as a proofreader, indexer and occasional researcher. She attends a work conference and meets Viola Dace, who is engaged in similar pursuits but makes greater claims for her work as an academic and aspiring novelist. Viola knows one of the lecturers, the handsome Aylwin Forbes. He is separated from his wife, and it seems his dalliance with Viola was the final straw that led to their separation. While Viola seems keen to renew their connection, Aylwin assiduously avoids her. Dulcie too finds herself attracted to him. Returned to London, Dulcie bumps into Viola, and they begin a kind of friendship. Dulcie’s eighteen-year-old niece Laurel comes to live with her while she does a secretarial course. Viola also moves in, having had a difference with her landlady. Meanwhile, Dulcie ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Glass Of Blessings
''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. Plot summary The central character and narrator, Wilmet Forsyth, is the thirty-three-year-old wife of a civil servant, Rodney, with a comfortable though routine life. She does not need to work and enjoys a life of leisure. When not lunching or shopping she occupies her time, somewhat guiltily, with occasional "good works", particularly at the instigation of Sybil, her slightly eccentric mother-in-law, whose house Wilmet and Rodney share. She becomes drawn into the social life of her church, St Luke's, and there makes a change for the good in the lives of two other characters. The kleptomaniac Wilf Bason has to resign from the government ministry where Rodney works and she arranges for Wilf to become housekeeper at the clergy house, shared by two celibate priests. She also gives support to Mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Excellent Women
''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. Title The phrase "excellent women" appears frequently throughout the novel, and is often used by men in reference to the kind of women who perform small but meaningful duties in the service of churches and voluntary organisations and are taken for granted. The phrase first appears in Pym's early unpublished novel '' Civil to Strangers'' and is taken from Jane Austen's novel ''Sanditon''. Plot summary The book is a first-person narrative in which Mildred Lathbury records the humdrum details of her everyday life in post-war London near the start of the 1950s. Perpetually self-deprecating, but with the sharpest wit, Mildred is a clergyman's daughter who is now just over thirty and lives in "a shabby part…very much the 'wrong' side of Victoria Station". She works part-time at th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International African Institute
The International African Institute (IAI) was founded (as the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures - IIALC) in 1926 in London for the study of African languages. Frederick Lugard was the first chairman (1926 to his death in 1945); Diedrich Hermann Westermann (1926 to 1939) and Maurice Delafosse (1926) were the initial co-directors. Since 1928, the IAI has published a quarterly journal, ''Africa''. For some years during the 1950s and 1960s, the assistant editor was the novelist Barbara Pym. The IAI's mission is "to promote the education of the public in the study of Africa and its languages and cultures". Its operations includes seminars, journals, monographs, edited volumes and stimulating scholarship within Africa. Publications The IAI has been involved in scholarly publishing since 1927. Scholars whose work has been published by the institute include Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Samir Amin, Karin Barber, Alex de Waal, Patrick Chabal, Mary Douglas, E. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. The term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological anthropology, Biological (or physical) anthropology studies the biology and evolution of Human evolution, humans and their close primate relatives. Archaeology, often referred to as the "anthropology of the past," explores human activity by examining physical remains. In North America and Asia, it is generally regarded as a branch of anthropology, whereas in Europe, it is considered either an independent discipline or classified under related fields like history and palaeontology. Etymology The abstract noun ''wikt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlantic, North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and List of islands of France, many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean, giving it Exclusive economic zone of France, one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world. Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north; Germany to the northeast; Switzerland to the east; Italy and Monaco to the southeast; Andorra and Spain to the south; and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the northwest. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its Regions of France, eighteen integral regions—five of which are overseas—span a combined area of and hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape is a British publishing firm headquartered in London and founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death. Cape and his business partner Wren Howard (1893–1968) set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation for high-quality design and production and a fine list of English-language authors, fostered by the firm's editor and publisher's reader, reader Edward Garnett. Cape's list of writers ranged from poets including Robert Frost and C. Day Lewis, to children's authors such as Roald Dahl, Hugh Lofting and Arthur Ransome, to James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, to heavyweight fiction by James Joyce and T. E. Lawrence. After Cape's death, the firm later merged successively with three other London publishing houses. In 1987 it was taken over by Random House. Its name continues as one of Random House's British Imprint (trade name), imprints. Cape – biography Early years Herbert Jonathan Cape was born in London o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
