JANE AND PRUDENCE

If Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates seem an unlikely pair to be walking together at an Oxford reunion, neither of them is aware of it. They couldn't be more different - Jane is a rather incompetent vicar's wife who always looks as if she is about to feed the chickens, while Prudence, a pristine hothouse flower, has the most unsuitable affairs. With the move to a rural parish, Jane is determined to find her friend the perfect man. She learns though that matchmaking has as many pitfalls as housewifery. Set in the early 1950s with all the rationing and privation that entailed, the ghastly Fabian Driver is apparently another skewering of one of Barbara Pym's ex-lovers. 240pp in facsimile reprinted paperback.