“I’ve sometimes wondered whether novelists like to be remembered for what they’ve said or because they’ve said it in their own particular way – in their own distinctive voice.”

In 1978, the BBC invited Barbara Pym to be a guest on its program where well-known writers discussed their work. Her views on the “distinctive voice” of a writer was of particular interest: in the 1960s, her publisher declined her seventh novel because he said her style was “old fashioned.” Fourteen years later, an article in the Times Literary Supplement reignited interest in her work. Her popularity soared. Her distinctive voice – humorous and melancholy, luminous and open – was in demand. Writers, take heart. Sometimes, great work is rediscovered and cherished. Pym’s books are more popular now than during her lifetime.

Pym, Barbara. Civil to Strangers and Other Writings. Virago, 2011, p. 377.