Barbara Mary Crampton Pym (2 June 1913 – 11 January 1980) was an English novelist. She is best known for her series of social comedies published in the 1950s, including Excellent Women (1952) and A Glass of Blessings (1958). Her career saw a revival in 1977 when the critic Lord David Cecil and the poet Philip Larkin nominated her as the most underrated writer of the century. Her novel Quartet in Autumn (1977) was nominated for the Booker Prize, and she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

After studying English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, Pym served in the Women's Royal Naval Service during World War II. From 1950 to 1961, she published six novels, but her seventh was declined by the publisher due to a change in public taste. Her work was re-discovered in 1977 and is now considered a classic of the 20th century.