An unconventional parlor maid upends the lives of an aristocratic family in prewar EnglandCluny Brown refuses to know her place in society. Last week, she took herself to tea at the Ritz. Then she spent almost an entire day in bed eating oranges. So, to teach her discipline, her uncle, a plumber who has raised the orphaned girl since she was a baby, sends her into service as a parlor maid at one of England's stately manor houses.At Friars Carmel in Devonshir...

It was indeed very difficult for the Laventie children not to be a little priggish.Ann Laventie, the youngest of three children in a long line of anti-social Sussex gentry, doesn't quite fit the mould of her intellectual, elegant, ultra-modern siblings Dick, an artist, and Elizabeth, a high-brow writer. Their father is scholarly and just wealthy enough to focus all his attention on reading and other highbrow pursuits. Ann, on the other hand, worries about being plump, is w...

In 1950s London, a career girl decides it's high time she snared herself a husbandProfessional dog photographer Louisa Datchett is indiscriminately fond of men. And they take shocking advantage of her good nature when they need their problems listened to, socks washed, prescriptions filled, or employment found.But by the age of thirty, Louisa is tired of constantly being dispatched to the scene of some masculine disaster. It's all well and good to be an ind...

Margery Sharp's most poignant novel, set during World War II and filled with her trademark wit and warmth, tells the story of the powerful bond forged between a British spinster and the unusual little girl left in her careAs the threat of war looms, Cecilia and Rab Guthrie leave their young daughter, Antoinette, with a spinster friend in East Anglia, England, so they can enjoy a holiday on the continent. Three-year-old Antoinette doesn't speak, is inordinately clums...

Margery Sharp's enchanting New York Times–bestselling novel about the profound ways that love can change our view of other people and the world around usMiss Dolores Diver and Harry Gibson have been passionately in love ever since they met at the Chelsea Arts Ball: He came as a brown paper parcel, she as a Spanish dancer. Only the eye of love could have transformed plain Dolores into a Spanish rose and stout Harry into the man of Dolores's dreams. But ten y...

In Victorian England, a glamorous, mysterious young woman overturns the lives of a traditional Devonshire farm family, in Margery Sharp's humorous, heartwarming New York Times–bestselling novelOn a farm in Devonshire, during a long hot summer, three women await the arrival of a fourth. The corseted, petticoated Sylvesters are no ordinary females. They are as fair-tempered as they are big and strong, the wives of modestly prosperous farmers who can stand up ...

A Jazz Age socialite impulsively adopts an orphaned boy in this humorous, heartwarming taleIn 1929 London, twenty-eight-year-old Lesley Frewen lives a privileged, cultured life. But one thing is missing: love. When her aunt's female companion suddenly dies, leaving behind a young son, Lesley decides on a whim to adopt four-year-old Patrick—though she doesn't have any particular affection for children.As soon as Patrick moves in with her, Lesley gets to work...

Sentimental, affectionate, uncritical, Mrs. Bracken so easily attached herself to persons, places, and even objects that after no more than two days in an hotel she had a favourite waiter, a favourite ornament, a favourite view. She had adored her husband, and was very fond of her French pepper-mill.World War II has ended and widowed Isabel Brocken, kind-hearted and generous if perhaps just a bit foolish, is back in her old family home on the outskirts of London, accompani...

After ten years, a successful painter returns to Paris and the son she left behind on her ex-lover's doorstep, in Margery Sharp's sparkling novel that features the artistic heroine of Martha in ParisAfter studying with le maître in Paris for a year, Martha returned to England to pursue her artistic destiny. Ten years later, she is an enormous success. But when she returns to Paris to attend an exhibition of her work, she must face some unfinished b...

She announced herself, rather self-consciously, as Mrs. Henry Smith, and he replied that Mrs. Cornwallis was expecting her. To Caroline, following him through a wide shabby hall, the whole episode was beginning to feel like a nightmare. She was intensely conscious of herself-of her dress, her voice, the way she placed her feet. She felt like a cook-general going to be interviewed."Mrs. Henry Smith," said the butler contemptuously.In Four Gardens, ...

Lisbeth Campion was engaged, as usual, in resisting advances.Arthur Alfred Partridge, a middle-aged widower with a drab job and a frustrated sense of adventure, gets more than he bargained for when he encounters the irresistible Lisbeth Campion, whose troubles go well beyond her plethora of suitors. She's particularly concerned about her wastrel brother Ronny, fresh from six months in prison for peddling cocaine (he thought it was baking powder, really he did!), with whom ...

"It's in my mind to put an end to this heathen wickedness that's stalking abroad through Gillenham. It's in my mind to terrify that evil man from his morrow's sinful doings.""We'll be going to Old Manor, then?""Not yet," said Mrs. Pye grimly. "We go first to the village. To rouse the women . . ."Professor Pounce arrives in the idyllic village of Gillenham, along with his sister-in-law, his nephew Nicholas, and Carmen, his voluptuous assist...