Crampton Hodnet

Life has a certain reassuring if not terribly exciting rhythm for the residents of North Oxford. Miss Morrow is content in her position as spinster companion to Miss Doggett, even if her employer and the woman’s social circle regard her as a piece of furniture. Stephen Latimer, the new cleric and Miss Doggett’s dashing new tenant, upsets the balance for Miss Morrow by proposing the long discounted possibility of marriage. Miss Doggett’s nephew, Mr. Francis Cleveland, is a handsome, middle-aged professor not destined for greatness in his field. He has a complaisant wife and an adoring pupil, a dangerous midlife combination. The town gossips witness an impulsive declaration of love between Francis Cleveland and Miss Bird and conclude that Mr. Cleveland is willing to sacrifice marriage and respectability for the sake of passion. Caught in a potentially compromising situation with Miss Morrow, Mr. Latimer clumsily refers to a nonexistent town: Crampton Hodnet. His lie is harmless. In this town appearances are much more deceiving. Barbara Pym began writing Crampton Hodnet in 1939. It was first published posthumously in 1987, thanks to her friend and biographer, Hazel Holt. This is a wonderfully accomplished farce beginning with the joke of using her own name in the title (Barbara Mary Crampton Pym). From that point she sails off into a wickedly comedic farce, focusing- in recognizingly ''Pym'' fashion- on the unsuitable romantic entanglements of a curate and a pretty young girl, both of whom live in the same rooming house, and a starry-eyed university professor and his female student. Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties to academics and acting as watchdog of the morals of North Oxford. Anthea, her niece, is in love with a dashing upper-class undergraduate. Of this, Miss Doggett thoroughly approves. Anthea's father, however, is carrying on in the most unseemly fashion with his student! A Novel Featuring A Pair Of Farcical Romances Captures Early Versions Of The Author's Famous Clergymen And Excellent Women, The Original Miss Doggett And Jessie Morrow From Jane And Prudence, And A Distinctly Oxford Cast Of Characters. Barbara Pym ; Introduced By Louis De Bernières. Genteel North Oxford is riven by gossip and scandal in Barbara Pym's exquisitely entertaining comedy. WIth a brand new introduction by Louis de Bernieres.