Jane and Prudence

By Barbara Pym

Subjects: Female friendship, Fiction, Spouses of clergy, Fiction, humorous, Fiction, humorous, general, Single women, England, fiction, Single women, fiction, Friendship, fiction

Description: Prudence pays Jane a visit in an English village where Jane's husband is the newly appointed vicar, and finds herself courted by a fatuous young widower. Prudence, at twenty-nine, has achieved nothing in life but a dull research job in London and a string of dud affairs; Jane, now in her forties, was Prudence's tutor at Oxford. Jane cheerfully concedes that she is an incompetent housewife, but she hopes that the move to a rural parish may transform her into a Trollopean vicar's wife, as well as a crafty matchmaker. There are many comic complications, as Jane learns that matchmaking has as many pitfalls as does housewifery.