First edition, London, Collins 1951

First American edition, 1951, Boston, Little, Brown

"When Charles Blagden Lillywhite, born in Somerset, 1873, resident in France since 1900, finally returned to England in 1946, the news of his repatriation did not arouse any strong family enthusiasm. In company with the old man came a daughter, Amelie, and a grand-daughter, Lise."

Lise Lillywhite is a paragon of beauty, innocence, and charm. Aunt Amelie thinks such a paragon should be married as quickly as possible--hopefully in the thinnest air of the social strata as possible. Cousin Martin Lillywhite thinks she should be protected and cossetted; with he playing the principal role. Grandfather Charles Lillywhite thinks her calling is at an ambassador's table, or civilizing a Grand Duke. Count Stanislas thinks she would make a perfect gangster's moll. But no one seems to know what the sweetly demure Lise Lillywhite thinks. And she's not telling.....

First edition, 1954, London, Collins [i.e.1953]

First American edition, 1954, Boston, Little, Brown

(there is also Book Club edition of this novel dated1953)

"In the heat of a spacious August noon, in the heart of the great summer of 1870, the three famous Sylvester women waited in their parlour to receive and make welcome the fourth. Themselves matched the day. The parlour was hot as a hothouse, not a window was open, all three women were big, strongly-corsetted, amply-petticoated, layered chin to toe in flannel, cambric, and silk at a guinea a yard. Their broad, handsome faces were scarlet, their temples moist. But they stood up to the heat of the parlour as they stood up to the heat of the kitchen or the heat of a harvest-field: as the sun poured in upon them so their own strong good-humour flowed out to meet it--to refract and multiply it, like the prisms of their candlesticks, the brass about their hearth. Nature had so cheerfully designed them that even wash-day left them fair-tempered: before the high festivity of a marriage their spirits rose, expanded, and bloomed to a solar pitch of stately jollification."

And it's this fourth Sylvester bride that starts an odd series of events in motion. Stephen, the youngest of the magnificent Sylvester men (all of whom, up until now, had chosen magnificent Teuton brides) is the first to break out on his own and let himself be caught by a frail, delicate young woman who looks like trouble from the moment she arrives. Sure enough she is; thus proving that the strength of self-interest can lend a mesmerizing power to the frailest of forms. Poorly fitted for this type of psychological warfare, the massive Sylvester household is turned on its ear. Until Charlotte takes matters into her own hands....

First edition, 1957, London, Collins

First American edition, 1957, Boston, Little, Brown

Fontana, London, 1959 PB

The Popular Book Club, London, 1967 HB

Boston Berkley Books, 1966 reprint, PB

Martha 'Trilogy' New English Library, 1969 PB

'...At number 11, however, neither memories nor nostalgia halted her. Martha walked straight in, (the door as always on the latch), crossed a narrow hall smelling of cabbage and wet mackintoshes, (here memory did slightly stir), and down a flight of stone steps into Ma Battleaxe's kitchen and private stronghold. It looked just like a witches' kitchen. There they all were--Ma Battleaxe and Mrs. Hopkinson from next door, and Miss Fish and Miss Jones from further up--average age sixty, personal habits deplorable, whiskery of chin and malevolent of eye. Martha regarded them with pleasure. Grouped about the inevitable teapot, the solid bulk of Ma Battleaxe balanced the almost equally important bulk of Miss Jones: between them skinny Mrs. Hopkinson and meager Miss Fish sketched a contrasting arabesque...'

Here is where we first meet Martha (later appearing in 'Martha in Paris' and 'Martha, Eric and George') the self-possessed schoolgirl who cannot stop drawing, and who, as the Librarian terms it, "has unmistakable force of character." But beyond Martha's story, is that of her aunt who has raised her, Dolores Diver; and Miss Diver's sweet, sad, secret love. Between Martha's well-meaning efforts to help her aunt earn a living, the plight of Harry Gibson (who has to marry Miranda Joyce for her money but is still hopelessly in love with 'his lovely Spanish Rose', Dolores) this is the story of the perfect and not so perfect world of perspective--the eye of love.