A GLASS OF BLESSINGS

Another installment in America's exposure to the Pyro revival, which began in England in 1976 and happily arrived here in 1978 with both vintage Pym (Excellent Women, originally published in 1952) and superb new Pyro (Quartet in Autumn). Her other new work was slightly disappointing--The Sweet Dove Died, 1979--but this second rediscovery, originally published in 1958, is welcome indeed, a comedy that's a bit less coldly dry than Excellent Women though still not as emotionally affecting as Quartet in Autumn. Again the heroine is repressed and romantic (a bored wife rather than a spinster this time), and again the comedy often centers around doings in and about the High Anglican church. Essential reading for Pym's growing readership on this side of the Atlantic.