[In reading A Few Green Leaves] one gets the best of both the early and the late Pym manner; a full and distinctive taste of what her novels are like.

That taste is such a mild thing that it is almost impossible to describe…. If one says that A Few Green Leaves is a beautifully written, very delicate comedy about a group of people living in a West Oxfordshire village, and that the two most exciting things which happen are a coffee morning and a Flower Festival, every Pym fan will go to their bookshop to buy it, unable to wait for the Public Library copy, and certain that they will want to read it half-a-dozen times…. But will someone who has not read Barbara Pym before think, from such an account, that the novel is worth starting? They will scarcely be encouraged by learning that the book...