I’m loving all the posts for #AltTextCoverDay today so join in if you can!
Here’s a beautiful book I bought earlier this year on a trip to Oxford. We visited the historic Blackwell’s bookshop which is enormous as I wanted to go to the rare books section at the top of the shop to see if they had any first editions of my favourite author, Barbara Pym. She studied at Oxford University and many of her books, which were published in the mid 20th century, are set in the city. I was surprised to find they only had one, Crampton Hodnet, and that it was no more expensive than a standard hardback book. I’m #blind so my husband described the cover and read the blurb for me and even though I’ll only ever read this book in Braille or audio now I had to buy it!
This novel was one she wrote just before WW2 but it was not published in her lifetime. She had a difficult #publishing journey after initial success in the 1950s and was eventually shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Quartet in Autumn in 1977. After her death in 1980 Macmillan finally published this one in 1985.
I’ve read all her books and a recent biography of her, so I love that I get to own this piece of her publishing history which is something she never got to enjoy. #bookstodon@bookstodon
