Our Spoons Came From Woolworths: A Virago Modern Classic

Barbara Comyns

Hul 2013 · Hachette UK

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'Comyns's world is weird and wonderful . . . a neglected genius' LUCY SCHOLES, OBSERVER

'A curious hybrid: a mixture of domestic disaster, social commentary, comedy, and romance . . . ' KATHERINE A. POWERS, BARNES & NOBLE REVIEW

'I defy anyone to read the opening pages and not to be drawn in, as I was . . . Quite simply, Comyns writes like no one else' MAGGIE O'FARRELL

Pretty, unworldly Sophia is twenty-one years old and hastily married to a young painter called Charles. An artist's model with an eccentric collection of pets, she is ill-equipped to cope with the bohemian London of the 1930s where poverty, babies (however much loved) and husband conspire to torment her.

Hoping to add some spice to her life, Sophia takes up with Peregrine, a dismal, ageing critic and comes to regret her marriage and her affair. But in this case virtue is more than its own reward, for repentance brings an abrupt end to the cycle of unsold pictures, unpaid bills and unwashed dishes . . .

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Born in 1909 at Bidford-on-Avon, Barbara Comyns was educated mainly by governesses until she went to art schools in Stratfordupon-Avon and London. She started writing fiction at the age of ten and her first novel, Sisters by a River, was published in 1947. She also worked in an advertising agency, a typewriting bureau, dealt in old cars and antique furniture, bred poodles, converted and let flats, and exhibited pictures in The London Group. She was married first in 1931, to an artist, and for the second time in 1945. With her second husband she lived in Spain for eighteen years. She died in 1992.