Editing Excellent Women (section)

==Publication history==
Barbara Pym originally outlined the novel in one of her notebooks, where it is headed "A full life", the phrase on which the book's eventual final chapter closes. Another partial draft was begun in February 1949, this time headed "No life of one's own", which relates to Mildred's reflections on how others perceive [[spinster]]hood.  There is also a note that "the time the novel begins is February 1946", which explains the emphasis on immediately post-war drabness.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Close Look at Chapter 1of Excellent Women |url=https://barbara-pym.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Bell-NA-2014.pdf |first=Beverly |last=Bell |page=2}}</ref>

Pym completed the novel in February 1951 and it appeared the following year from Jonathan Cape, which had published her previous ''Some Tame Gazelle'', as was noted on its cover. The book was well received, with plaudits which included the ''[[Church Times]]'' comparing her writing to [[Jane Austen]]'s, while [[John Betjeman]], in his review for ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', praised its humour.<ref>{{cite book |last=Holt |first=Hazel |date=1990 |title=A Lot to Ask: A Life of Barbara Pym |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |page=160 |isbn=0525249370}}</ref> The novel sold 6,577 copies in Great Britain by the end of the 1950s, far outselling her other novels, although by no means a bestseller.<ref>Holt 1990, p.194</ref>

By 1954, Pym wrote that eight American publishers and 10 publishers from [[Continental Europe]] had seen the manuscript and declined to publish it. Indeed, ''Excellent Women'' had to wait until [[E.P. Dutton]] published it in the US in 1978. The novelist [[John Updike]], reviewing it then, wrote that:<ref>Holt 1990, p.275</ref>
{{Blockquote
|text= ''Excellent Women''... is a startling reminder that solitude may be chosen, and that a lively, full novel can be constructed entirely within the precincts of that regressive virtue: feminine patience.
}}

Translations into European languages began soon after, with the Dutch ''Geweldige Vrouwen'' in 1980,<ref>[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61044476-geweldige-vrouwen  Good Reads]</ref> followed by a Spanish translation in 1985,<ref>[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/227013.Mujeres_excelentes ''Mujeres excelentes'']</ref> an Italian in the same year,<ref>[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11263166-donne-eccellenti ''Donne eccellenti'']</ref> and a German in 1988.<ref>[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6388215-vortreffliche-frauen ''Vortreffliche Frauen'']</ref> The French translation of 1990 not only changes the title to ''Des Femmes Remarquables''<ref>[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7123679-des-femmes-remarquables Good Reads]</ref> but is reported to lack much of the novel's wit.<ref>Beverley Bell 2019, p.10</ref> ''Excellent Women'' was later translated into such languages as Russian, Estonian, Icelandic, Turkish and Persian.<ref>https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/1883997-excellent-women?page=1 Good Reads</ref>