Editing Barbara Pym (section)

===Early literary career===
Pym wrote her first novel, ''[[Some Tame Gazelle]]'', in 1935, but it was rejected by numerous publishers including [[Jonathan Cape]] and [[Victor Gollancz Ltd|Gollancz]].<ref>Pym 1984, p. 56</ref> She wrote another novel, ''Civil to Strangers'', in 1936 and several novellas in the following years, which were collectively published as ''[[Civil to Strangers]]'' after Pym's death. In 1940, Pym wrote the novel ''[[Crampton Hodnet]]'', which would also be published after her death.<ref>Pym 1984, p. 97</ref>

After some years of submitting stories to women's magazines, Pym heavily revised ''Some Tame Gazelle'', which this time was accepted by Jonathan Cape for publication in 1950.<ref name="Fowler">[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/invisible-ink-no-68--barbara-pym-2240300.html Christopher Fowler, "Invisible Ink: No. 68"], ''The Independent'', 13 March 2011, accessed 30 September 2011</ref> The poet [[Philip Larkin]] regarded ''Some Tame Gazelle'' as Pym's ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Weld |first=Annette |date=1992 |title= Barbara Pym and the Novel of Manners |location=New York |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |page=58 |isbn=9781349216925}}</ref> The novel follows the lives of two middle-aged [[spinster]] sisters in an English village before the War, who are both given the possibility of love. That year, Pym also had a [[radio play]] – ''Something to Remember'' – accepted by the [[BBC]].<ref>Holt 1990, p. 145</ref>

Pym's second novel, ''[[Excellent Women]]'' (1952), was well received, but her third, ''[[Jane and Prudence]]'' (1953), received more mixed reviews.<ref>Holt 1990, p.164</ref> Her fourth novel, ''[[Less than Angels]]'' (1955), had poorer sales than the previous three,<ref>letter from Wren Howard to Barbara Pym, December 1955, published in ''A Few Green Leaves: The Journal of the Barbara Pym Society'', Vol 9, No. 2, November 2003</ref> but it attracted enough attention to be Pym's debut novel in [[the United States]]. A representative from [[Twentieth Century Fox]] came to England with an interest in securing the film rights, but this ultimately fell through.<ref>Holt 1990, p.171</ref>

Pym's fifth novel, ''[[A Glass of Blessings]]'' (1958), was poorly reviewed,  Pym noting that – of her first six novels – it was the worst reviewed.<ref>Pym 1984, p.203</ref> However, the inclusion of sympathetic [[homosexual]] characters, in an era when homosexuality was largely frowned upon, and homosexual acts between men were illegal, attracted some interest in contemporary reviews, including ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''.<ref>Holt 1990, p.180</ref> Pym's sixth novel was ''[[No Fond Return of Love]]'' (1961), in which two female academic research assistants fall in love with the same man. The book continued the trend of Pym's novels receiving minimal critical attention. Nonetheless, it was positively reviewed in ''[[Tatler]]'', the reviewer commenting:

{{Blockquote
|text= I love and admire Miss Pym's pussycat wit and profoundly unsoppy kindliness, and we may leave the deeply peculiar, face-saving, gently tormented English middle classes safely in her hands.
}}After Pym made a less than flattering allusion to a [[Marks & Spencer|Marks and Spencer's]] dress in her work, the company's legal department was sufficiently concerned by her influence to write to her.<ref name=":0" />