The 1960's

First edition, 1960, London, Collins

First American edition, 1961, Boston, Little, Brown

Louisa Mary Datchett was very fond of men. Men, for their part, seemed to recognize this in her and took advantage of it--and of her--when they needed listening to, when they needed prescriptions filled, employment found, socks washed, suits fetched from the cleaners, or musical instruments got out of hock. "Bachelors in lodgings going down with influenza employed their last spark of consciousness to telephone Louisa. ..She was constantly being either sent for, like a fire engine, or dispatched, like a lifeboat, to the scene of some masculine disaster." It is time, Louisa decides, feeling jaded, to start looking out for herself. The result of this new and unfamiliar impulse is to marry, and marry well...

After making this momentous decision, the usual array of hilarious Sharp characters begin to appear in Louisa's life; the off-beat, the bronchial, and the vegetarian flautists, as well as F. Pennon who hires television time to complain about the weather, the delicate Enid Anstruther, with her perfect profile and gallant abilities as a hostess ("give her a dinner table and she'd animate it, even though her head split--") and the steady Jimmy Brown--who always had to be home for supper.

An altogether warm-hearted, funny, and endearing story!

First edition, 1962, London, Collins

First American edition, 1963, Boston, Little, Brown

"That's France," said Mr. Joyce. "How does it strike you?"
Martha stumped over to the rail. They were entering Dieppe Harbor. It was her first glimpse of foreign soil.
"The light's good," said Martha.

Martha is an artist. First, last, and always. Her sole purpose and passion in life is drawing. Odd, ordinary objects. Line, shadow and angle are what absorb her. Going to the French countryside for an outing is, for Martha, an opportunity to draw a kitchen stove. She detests landscapes--even French ones--and the thought of sitting daily in front of 'acres of amorphous vegetation, listening to a dedicated paysagiste babble about light values', is abhorrent to her.

To some, Martha's genius, her complete self-absorption in her art, borders on autism. Yet, without being actually likeable--even Sharp makes no apologies for her in the narrative--i.e. 'Martha wouldn't have robbed a blind man, but that was about her limit of her financial delicacy--' she is still a fascinating character.

In Sharp's insightful, ironic way, she draws a compelling portrait of genius.
(Martha is first introduced in 'The Eye of Love'.)

First edition, 1964 London, Collins

First American edition, 1964, Boston, Little, Brown

an illustrated edition 1964 Little, Brown, illustrations by Garth Williams

1969 paperback edition

'Eric Taylor, returning home to lunch, after the French fashion, paused as usual outside the concierge's lodge. The flat occupied by himself and his mother was on the fourth floor; tradespeople in a hurry frequently left parcels below--also Madame Leclerc the concierge seldom troubled to carry up a letter unless she suspected it to contain bad news. The pause at the lodge was part of Eric's routine, his words ritual.

"Anything for me to take up, Madame Leclerc?"

For once, a rare smile curved the thin lips. Employing all her fine Gallic gifts of drama, irony and concision--

"Apparently yes, monsieur," replied Madame Leclerc; and issuing burdened from her lodge planted in his arms a carry-cot containing a two-weeks-old infant...'

One of the delights of reading Margery are the unexpected touches that leave you blinking and sometimes breathless--almost always laughing--woven in with the charm of cozy stereotypes and the beguile of the eccentric. In 'Martha, Eric and George' we return to all of these elements, as well as some favorite characters first introduced in 'The Eye of Love' and 'Martha in Paris'. Here you will find tenderness in surprising places. Little George, (the baby Martha abandons at the doorstep of the father, Eric) at the age of ten--with the tenacity of a pitbull--decides to take his future into his own hands. In spite of the fact that he looks far too much like his father for Martha's taste, he manages to do what everyone (even the reader) thought was impossible--tug at Martha's heartstrings.

First edition, British, 1965, London, Heinemann, ltd.

First American edition, 1965, Boston, Little, Brown

(there have been later paperback editions, as well)

"Because it was too soon to get up Cathy lay in bed and watched spokes of light wheel across the ceiling like the ribs of an opening fanThis was when the day began. The heart of the day was the swim. On the rocks below Victoria Avenue sun struck through flesh and bone to marrow, making Cathy feel at once light-headed and heavy-limbed; by contrast, the sudden shade inside the bathing-boxes was almost cold. But where the sun struck most royally of all was on the flat roof of the house. It was here Cathy took her curtailed siesta; sometimes she brought out a quilt, sometimes didn't bother but stretched equally unprotected from the heat of the stone beneath and the heat of the sun on her face. Down the sun beat and hotly, royally ravished, as Cathy opened to its embrace her small, skinny frame."

Thus we meet Cathy Pennon--an impudent child with bright red hair and bony frame. Her love affair with the sun begins on a small Mediterranean island, and it manages to survive even when she is forced to return to soggy Britain and middle-class life. The story spans more than three decades and two world wars--and Cathy is an unwilling, even uncooperative participant as Britain endures great hardship and social change. But she holds on to her dream of life and freedom on a sun-baked island. Her maxim of 'always hold the thread to the sun' shall one day finally deliver her.

British edition, 1968, London, Heinemann, ltd.

First American edition, 1967, Boston, Little, Brown

"After some thirty years of marriage Mrs. Prelude's sole manifestation of independence was always, when travelling by plane, to sit in the tail. She'd read somewhere that it was safer, in the tail, and events proved her right. When the jet taking them back from Geneva crashed into an Alp, Mrs. Prelude, in the tail, was but shocked and bruised, whereas of her husband there remained but the remains."

Thus begins one of Sharp's more unusual premises for a charming comedy--a tragic death in the family that sets off a madcap series of events. But did Mr. Prelude really die, is the question--? Poor Mrs. Prelude is beset by doubts: perhaps that wasn't her dear Arthur, after all--so hastily identified. What if he was still alive....wandering about in a state of shock....an amnesiac....living in some peasant's hut near the fatal scene? Young Lydia Prelude, only sixteen but already feeling much more intelligent than the rest of her family, begins--aided by her cousin Tony--a hectic quest to prove that her father is still alive. The result is 'true vintage Sharp, a sly, subtle, and delightfully funny tale.'