Barbara Comyns Carr, writing under the name Barbara Comyns, published ten novels and one autobiographical work between 1947 and 1989. Margaret Drabble notes in a reprint of one of Comyns’ novels that her works “are strange and unsettling, and her career was unorthodox”, also noting that she was “never a mainstream writer” (Drabble, 2011). However, she is a writer who continues to permeate the literary scene, whose original voice periodically catches the attention of other writers who express their delight and astonishment at finding such original (though neglected) masterpieces.

In her introduction to Comyns’ second novel, Our Spoons Came From Woolworths (1950), Maggie O’Farrell notes that Comyns had “a …

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Citation: Cousins, Helen Rachel. "Barbara Comyns Carr". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 August 2016 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13243, accessed 23 April 2024.]

13243 Barbara Comyns Carr 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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