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Lenckos and Miller divide these 19 essays on the brilliant British novelist Barbara Pym (1915-80) into two parts. After brief essay on Pym's Life, the first ten essays concern "the significance of reading" in her novels and address such topics as the importance of literature to her characters, the "position of the female reader in literature," the role of the library in the lives of Pym and of her characters, "the amused observation and mild sense of irony" in Some Tame Gazell, and her autobiographical metaphors of aging and dying in three novels. The remaining nine essays, on "the literary encounters and collaborations" in Pym's life and works, concern her relationship to her publisher; the comfort of her work offered John Bayley as his wife, Iris Murdoch, succumbed to Alzheimer's; her epistolary relationship to Philip Larkin; the effect of the novels of Charlotte M. Yonge on Pym's work. Pym writes of those whose lives would otherwise be unnoticed. These essays probe the subtleties, undercurrents, and connections in her work, both to other novels and to the reading public. As Hazel Holt, Pym's literary executor, observes, "once you've read the novels, she is with you forever." Summing Up: Highly recommended. English and women's studies collections; all levels.