What do you think?
Harlequin House
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 her stern, upright Army fiancé, expected back from India soon, has forbidden her further contact.
In a gloriously implausible but deliciously entertaining sequence of events, Mr Partridge gets swept up in Lisbeth's unusual efforts to get Ronny safely squared. In the meantime, these three eccentric souls set up makeshift housekeeping in London and work at odd jobs (some very odd indeed) to make ends meet. Harlequin House, first published in 1939 and out of print for more than 60 years, has all the glitter and wit readers expect from the incomparable Margery Sharp. This new edition features an introduction by twentieth-century women's historian Elizabeth Crawford.
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 her stern, upright Army fiancé, expected back from India soon, has forbidden her further contact.
In a gloriously implausible but deliciously entertaining sequence of events, Mr Partridge gets swept up in Lisbeth's unusual efforts to get Ronny safely squared. In the meantime, these three eccentric souls set up makeshift housekeeping in London and work at odd jobs (some very odd indeed) to make ends meet. Harlequin House, first published in 1939 and out of print for more than 60 years, has all the glitter and wit readers expect from the incomparable Margery Sharp. This new edition features an introduction by twentieth-century women's historian Elizabeth Crawford.
228 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 1944
About the author
Margery Sharp
82 books191 followersMargery Sharp was born Clara Margery Melita Sharp in Salisbury. She spent part of her childhood in Malta.
Sharp wrote 26 novels, 14 children's stories, 4 plays, 2 mysteries and many short stories. She is best known for her series of children's books about a little white mouse named Miss Bianca and her companion, Bernard. Two Disney films have been made based on them, called The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under.
In 1938, she married Major Geoffrey Castle, an aeronautical engineer.
Sharp wrote 26 novels, 14 children's stories, 4 plays, 2 mysteries and many short stories. She is best known for her series of children's books about a little white mouse named Miss Bianca and her companion, Bernard. Two Disney films have been made based on them, called The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under.
In 1938, she married Major Geoffrey Castle, an aeronautical engineer.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
January 25, 2019
I think it is fair to say that this book is not Margery Sharp at the very top of her game, but it does have its own distinctive charms.
It opens in Dortmouth Bay, a seaside resort town, with a rather unlikely hero. Mr Partridge is an elderly widower, who has abandoned his duties to stroll along the seafront, hoping to find something interesting happening.
“The walk along their top was bounded on one side by a row of equally white palings, on the other by a stretch of perfectly-kept lawn adorned with moon- or star-shaped flower-beds. The beds made patterns on the lawn, the flowers made patterns in the beds, geometry and horticulture clasped hands. Upon all these things the sun, as Mr. Partridge sallied forth on the second afternoon in July, shone brightly down. (It had to: Dormouth Bay boasted a higher average of sunshine than any other town on the south coast.) The sea lapped gently in a neat blue crescent. A passing schoolchild stopped to pick up a paper bag and deposit it in a box marked LITTER. Every object in sight conformed unhesitatingly to either natural or municipal orders. Only Mr. Partridge was lawless.
His very presence on those lawns, at that hour, was a scandal. Already three infuriated subscribers had clamoured in vain at the door of his twopenny Library in Cliff Street; already two widows and a maid were facing the prospect of a lonely evening unsolaced by literature. One of them, who had just discovered the works of Miss E. M. Dell, and who had hastened back for more, rattled the knob with such violence that the BACK SHORTLY notice fell to the ground. This would have annoyed Mr. Partridge had he known, for he considered the phrase “Back shortly” to be the commercial equivalent of the social “Not at home” – something to be accepted without question, and with a good grace. In this, as in so much else, he was of course wrong. It was part of his lawlessness.
He did not look lawless. In height he was five foot four, in shape oval. His attire was inconspicuous – pepper-and-salt trousers, black alpaca jacket, panama hat – except about the feet. Mr. Partridge wore brown-and-white shoes, the white brilliantly pure, the brown chocolate-dark, and scarlet socks; and these added a peculiar touch of frivolity to his whole appearance. They were the single outward sign that the scenery of Dormouth Bay had for once fallen down on its job.
Mr. Partridge strolled across the grass and approached one of the star-shaped parterres. From its margin sprouted three notice boards. Two were municipal, bearing the injunctions “Please do not pick,” “Please keep off the beds”; on the third, donated by the Dormouth Bay Rose-Growers Association, it said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II, l. 43. D. B. R.-G. A.” Mr. Partridge read all three, took out his penknife, and stepped between the bushes to cut a button-hole …. “
I was to grow very fond of this Mr. Partridge, and I miss him and wonder what he might be doing now that the story is over.
His progress led him to an elderly maiden lady and she introduces him her niece, the lovely Lisbeth Campion, who she has brought to the seaside to keep her safe from the temptations and dangers of London while her new fiancé, a military man, is carrying out a terribly important secret assignment in the Middle East.
He was very taken with Lisbeth, who was beautiful and charming, and who dealt with any number of hopeful young men who fell at her feet kindly and firmly.
Later that day, Mr. Partridge sees Lisbeth driving off with one of her admirers.
"Mr. Partridge’s first thought was purely instinctive. Because he acted on it, it was to have far-reaching effect, it was to turn the course of several lives; but it was based neither on reason nor even on common sense.
“Can’t have that,” thought Mr. Partridge.
For all he knew Miss Campion and Mr. Lambert were simply going for a run along the cliff. If he had stopped to consider, some such innocent explanation would at once have presented itself. But he did not stop. The car had almost drawn clear. Its rumble, open to accommodate an up-ended suitcase, was already all of it that Mr. Partridge could see. He had no time to consider, he had time only to jump forward and grip and scramble over the smooth side. He had certainly no time to settle himself. The car, leaping from first to second gear, did all the settling for him.
It wasn’t going along the cliff. It was going to London …"
In London – in Trafalgar Square, to be exact – Mr Partridge discovered that there was much more to Lisbeth than met the eye. She had a loyal heart, a quiet determination, and a wonderful ability to mislead and misdirect people without actually telling lies.
She had come to London to meet her younger brother Ronny, who was as charming and attractive as his sister, and who she had been told by her aunts to forget. He was just out of prison after getting caught up in a cocaine-trafficking scandal, and his sister had decided to get him back on his feet again so that she could introduce him to her fiancé on his return.
The trio set up house together at Harlequin House.
Mr Partridge finds a job that is much more to his liking than that of small-town librarian, and Lisbeth finds a job that suits her just as well.
"Under Victoria the Good, even under Edward the Peacemaker, it would have been unthinkable; for in those days there was still an adequate supply of active single women ready to run about and perform extra tasks for the more fortunate married. (Miss Pickering, taking charge of her sister’s two children, and being dispatched with Lisabeth to Dormouth Bay, was a good example.) But since then times had changed: the ranks of these useful creatures had been thinned: some had entered the professions, some preferred to work for (and be paid by) strangers, some had simply not been born. Wanted Women stepped into the breach. It would supply, on the shortest notice, a competent gentlewoman to supervise spring-cleaning, take children to school, shew country-cousins the town, meet trains, exercise dogs. The shades of a thousand Victorian aunts must have been constantly wringing their hands at this intrusion of hired help into the family circle; but Wanted Women was prosperous and busy."
Isn’t that wonderful?
The pair work together to find a useful occupation for Ronny, and to get him on a legal and independent footing, but it isn’t easy because Ronny is indolent and skilled at sliding through life on charm. Even the two of them – even the admirers that Lisbeth continues to attract – are susceptible.
There are many twists and turns before a lovely finale, when Lisbeth’s fiance comes home rather sooner than he was expected.
This book doesn’t have the sparkling wit of many of the authors’ better-known works, and it has less to say and less plot than those books, but it held me from start to finish. I loved and cared about the characters, I was very taken with its mixture of light and dark, and there are lovely Margery-isms scattered through the pages.
Turns of phrase, details of character, wry observations, little plot details ….
This is Margery Sharp in a minor key.
Not the book to pick up if you haven’t read her before, but definitely a book to look out for if you like her style.
It opens in Dortmouth Bay, a seaside resort town, with a rather unlikely hero. Mr Partridge is an elderly widower, who has abandoned his duties to stroll along the seafront, hoping to find something interesting happening.
“The walk along their top was bounded on one side by a row of equally white palings, on the other by a stretch of perfectly-kept lawn adorned with moon- or star-shaped flower-beds. The beds made patterns on the lawn, the flowers made patterns in the beds, geometry and horticulture clasped hands. Upon all these things the sun, as Mr. Partridge sallied forth on the second afternoon in July, shone brightly down. (It had to: Dormouth Bay boasted a higher average of sunshine than any other town on the south coast.) The sea lapped gently in a neat blue crescent. A passing schoolchild stopped to pick up a paper bag and deposit it in a box marked LITTER. Every object in sight conformed unhesitatingly to either natural or municipal orders. Only Mr. Partridge was lawless.
His very presence on those lawns, at that hour, was a scandal. Already three infuriated subscribers had clamoured in vain at the door of his twopenny Library in Cliff Street; already two widows and a maid were facing the prospect of a lonely evening unsolaced by literature. One of them, who had just discovered the works of Miss E. M. Dell, and who had hastened back for more, rattled the knob with such violence that the BACK SHORTLY notice fell to the ground. This would have annoyed Mr. Partridge had he known, for he considered the phrase “Back shortly” to be the commercial equivalent of the social “Not at home” – something to be accepted without question, and with a good grace. In this, as in so much else, he was of course wrong. It was part of his lawlessness.
He did not look lawless. In height he was five foot four, in shape oval. His attire was inconspicuous – pepper-and-salt trousers, black alpaca jacket, panama hat – except about the feet. Mr. Partridge wore brown-and-white shoes, the white brilliantly pure, the brown chocolate-dark, and scarlet socks; and these added a peculiar touch of frivolity to his whole appearance. They were the single outward sign that the scenery of Dormouth Bay had for once fallen down on its job.
Mr. Partridge strolled across the grass and approached one of the star-shaped parterres. From its margin sprouted three notice boards. Two were municipal, bearing the injunctions “Please do not pick,” “Please keep off the beds”; on the third, donated by the Dormouth Bay Rose-Growers Association, it said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II, l. 43. D. B. R.-G. A.” Mr. Partridge read all three, took out his penknife, and stepped between the bushes to cut a button-hole …. “
I was to grow very fond of this Mr. Partridge, and I miss him and wonder what he might be doing now that the story is over.
His progress led him to an elderly maiden lady and she introduces him her niece, the lovely Lisbeth Campion, who she has brought to the seaside to keep her safe from the temptations and dangers of London while her new fiancé, a military man, is carrying out a terribly important secret assignment in the Middle East.
He was very taken with Lisbeth, who was beautiful and charming, and who dealt with any number of hopeful young men who fell at her feet kindly and firmly.
Later that day, Mr. Partridge sees Lisbeth driving off with one of her admirers.
"Mr. Partridge’s first thought was purely instinctive. Because he acted on it, it was to have far-reaching effect, it was to turn the course of several lives; but it was based neither on reason nor even on common sense.
“Can’t have that,” thought Mr. Partridge.
For all he knew Miss Campion and Mr. Lambert were simply going for a run along the cliff. If he had stopped to consider, some such innocent explanation would at once have presented itself. But he did not stop. The car had almost drawn clear. Its rumble, open to accommodate an up-ended suitcase, was already all of it that Mr. Partridge could see. He had no time to consider, he had time only to jump forward and grip and scramble over the smooth side. He had certainly no time to settle himself. The car, leaping from first to second gear, did all the settling for him.
It wasn’t going along the cliff. It was going to London …"
In London – in Trafalgar Square, to be exact – Mr Partridge discovered that there was much more to Lisbeth than met the eye. She had a loyal heart, a quiet determination, and a wonderful ability to mislead and misdirect people without actually telling lies.
She had come to London to meet her younger brother Ronny, who was as charming and attractive as his sister, and who she had been told by her aunts to forget. He was just out of prison after getting caught up in a cocaine-trafficking scandal, and his sister had decided to get him back on his feet again so that she could introduce him to her fiancé on his return.
The trio set up house together at Harlequin House.
Mr Partridge finds a job that is much more to his liking than that of small-town librarian, and Lisbeth finds a job that suits her just as well.
"Under Victoria the Good, even under Edward the Peacemaker, it would have been unthinkable; for in those days there was still an adequate supply of active single women ready to run about and perform extra tasks for the more fortunate married. (Miss Pickering, taking charge of her sister’s two children, and being dispatched with Lisabeth to Dormouth Bay, was a good example.) But since then times had changed: the ranks of these useful creatures had been thinned: some had entered the professions, some preferred to work for (and be paid by) strangers, some had simply not been born. Wanted Women stepped into the breach. It would supply, on the shortest notice, a competent gentlewoman to supervise spring-cleaning, take children to school, shew country-cousins the town, meet trains, exercise dogs. The shades of a thousand Victorian aunts must have been constantly wringing their hands at this intrusion of hired help into the family circle; but Wanted Women was prosperous and busy."
Isn’t that wonderful?
The pair work together to find a useful occupation for Ronny, and to get him on a legal and independent footing, but it isn’t easy because Ronny is indolent and skilled at sliding through life on charm. Even the two of them – even the admirers that Lisbeth continues to attract – are susceptible.
There are many twists and turns before a lovely finale, when Lisbeth’s fiance comes home rather sooner than he was expected.
This book doesn’t have the sparkling wit of many of the authors’ better-known works, and it has less to say and less plot than those books, but it held me from start to finish. I loved and cared about the characters, I was very taken with its mixture of light and dark, and there are lovely Margery-isms scattered through the pages.
Turns of phrase, details of character, wry observations, little plot details ….
This is Margery Sharp in a minor key.
Not the book to pick up if you haven’t read her before, but definitely a book to look out for if you like her style.
June 23, 2021
To see it with meaningless pictures go here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
I guess it’s no coincidence that I am about to recommend four books read in a row since they are all authors whose works I have determined to read in their entirety.
(1) Savage Night by Jim Thompson. It’s been a while since I’ve read a Jim Thompson and this one seemed more ambitious than I recall. The anti-hero is a tragic figure. The reader may not be able to go as far as empathy – none of us have lived anywhere near this place and these people. But Thompson himself lived the life. So his clever way with words is true. It makes such a difference to know that.
(2) Juggling the Stars by Tim Parks. Not a million miles from Savage Night, but this time the anti-hero is a failed Northern Brit who is doomed to a life on the edge of failure, teaching English in Italy. What could be more demeaning a life? And, of course, like Thompson, Parks is writing for real, having been a teacher of English in Italy for his life’s work. The subtitle says it all ‘A novel of menace’. He is super good at the unease which ensures the reader is gripped in the tale’s vice. Only finishing it gives release.
(3) Harlequin House by Margery Sharp. One could scarcely change the tempo more. A typical story marked by gentle social digs, a love of words and a hilarious motley collection of characters, lead by the protagonist Mr Partridge with his dapper style and overactive imagination. Delightful.
(4) To Siberia by Per Petterson. I did this the discourtesy of it being my reading on the bus book. It definitely deserved better than to be picked up and down half a dozen times a day. It has the trademark Norwegian glumness, but despite that being the basic beat of the book it nonetheless outdoes itself with the very saddest last two sentences. Your heart will sigh when you get there.
I guess it’s no coincidence that I am about to recommend four books read in a row since they are all authors whose works I have determined to read in their entirety.
(1) Savage Night by Jim Thompson. It’s been a while since I’ve read a Jim Thompson and this one seemed more ambitious than I recall. The anti-hero is a tragic figure. The reader may not be able to go as far as empathy – none of us have lived anywhere near this place and these people. But Thompson himself lived the life. So his clever way with words is true. It makes such a difference to know that.
(2) Juggling the Stars by Tim Parks. Not a million miles from Savage Night, but this time the anti-hero is a failed Northern Brit who is doomed to a life on the edge of failure, teaching English in Italy. What could be more demeaning a life? And, of course, like Thompson, Parks is writing for real, having been a teacher of English in Italy for his life’s work. The subtitle says it all ‘A novel of menace’. He is super good at the unease which ensures the reader is gripped in the tale’s vice. Only finishing it gives release.
(3) Harlequin House by Margery Sharp. One could scarcely change the tempo more. A typical story marked by gentle social digs, a love of words and a hilarious motley collection of characters, lead by the protagonist Mr Partridge with his dapper style and overactive imagination. Delightful.
(4) To Siberia by Per Petterson. I did this the discourtesy of it being my reading on the bus book. It definitely deserved better than to be picked up and down half a dozen times a day. It has the trademark Norwegian glumness, but despite that being the basic beat of the book it nonetheless outdoes itself with the very saddest last two sentences. Your heart will sigh when you get there.
July 30, 2021
Just wonderful. Charming story and characters, and the author has a way of being obviously fond of her characters but also poking fun at them that is very engaging.
I can't think of anyone writing this kind of book nowadays, more's the pity. We could all use a little gentle puncturing of our self-importance.
I can't think of anyone writing this kind of book nowadays, more's the pity. We could all use a little gentle puncturing of our self-importance.
May 31, 2023
3.5*
Life takes a sudden interesting and upward turn for Mr Partridge, a middle-aged librarian in Dortmouth Bay, when he befriends Lisbeth Campion and her brother Ronny, just out of prison for dealing drugs. Lisbeth, who is engaged to the well to do Captain Hugh Brocard, is forbidden from seeing her brother who pays for him to disappear - but he doesn’t go. Lisbeth instead has six months to reform him while the Captain is away in India, and Mr Partridge offers to help. They all live together in a flat in Paddington, London and have to find new ways to make ends meet. Mr Partridge gets works with Miss Macbeth standing with an advertising board on Oxford Street for her Scottish cafe and Lisbeth works as a Wanted Woman doing odd jobs such as reading to old ladies and childminding. Ronny is unemployable and ultimately extremely lazy but Lisbeth does eventually find him work painting cards. Then Lisbeth meets Lester Hamilton, an American working at the nearby film studios and everything starts to take a different direction - she’s not so sure she loves the Captain after all. Time eventually runs out, the Captain returns, and in a some what farcical fashion, Lisbeth eventually breaks off her engagement and marries Lester, Ronnie meets a rich young lady, Helena Clough and Mr Partridge moves in with the Walkers, friends and neighbours in Harlequin House.
I enjoyed this book, but the premise struck me as slightly odd. Ronny was not a very likeable or fully developed character - you only wanted him to be less lazy for Lisbeth's sake. The romance between Lisbeth and Lester Hamilton was restrained and emotionless - therefore not very romantic, and I didn't care whether she left the Captain or married him.
Life takes a sudden interesting and upward turn for Mr Partridge, a middle-aged librarian in Dortmouth Bay, when he befriends Lisbeth Campion and her brother Ronny, just out of prison for dealing drugs. Lisbeth, who is engaged to the well to do Captain Hugh Brocard, is forbidden from seeing her brother who pays for him to disappear - but he doesn’t go. Lisbeth instead has six months to reform him while the Captain is away in India, and Mr Partridge offers to help. They all live together in a flat in Paddington, London and have to find new ways to make ends meet. Mr Partridge gets works with Miss Macbeth standing with an advertising board on Oxford Street for her Scottish cafe and Lisbeth works as a Wanted Woman doing odd jobs such as reading to old ladies and childminding. Ronny is unemployable and ultimately extremely lazy but Lisbeth does eventually find him work painting cards. Then Lisbeth meets Lester Hamilton, an American working at the nearby film studios and everything starts to take a different direction - she’s not so sure she loves the Captain after all. Time eventually runs out, the Captain returns, and in a some what farcical fashion, Lisbeth eventually breaks off her engagement and marries Lester, Ronnie meets a rich young lady, Helena Clough and Mr Partridge moves in with the Walkers, friends and neighbours in Harlequin House.
I enjoyed this book, but the premise struck me as slightly odd. Ronny was not a very likeable or fully developed character - you only wanted him to be less lazy for Lisbeth's sake. The romance between Lisbeth and Lester Hamilton was restrained and emotionless - therefore not very romantic, and I didn't care whether she left the Captain or married him.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 22, 2018
Another delightful read. Margery Sharp's books are serious page turners. This novel is a frolic but it is masterfully done.
April 29, 2021
Another charmer of a novel from Margery Sharp, whose wit and humor never seems to flag.
August 28, 2023
Summary
The book opens in Dortmouth Bay, where we find Arthur Alfred Partridge employed in a small library where people can lease books for twopence a week. His job comes with a small kitchen behind the shop and a bedroom above and, for the most part, the work seems to suit him well enough. Then he meets Lisbeth and his world is turned upside down.
Lisbeth, an orphan without financial means, is a lovely young woman. She is the type of woman with whom men seem constantly to fall in love. However, she is engaged to an upright military man from a good family. Hugh, her fiancé, believes Lisbeth is absolute perfection, an angel incapable of wrong-doing.
Her brother, Ronny, is a different story entirely. Ronny has recently been released from prison and her family and fiancé are determined to keep Ronny and Lisbeth apart so that he does not sully her reputation. Lisbeth, however, does not find those arrangements suitable, and she sets about with a quiet determination to redeem her brother’s image - a fairly daunting task given Ronny lacks brains, skills, common sense or any real desire to change.
Through a comedy of errors, Mr. Partridge finds himself sharing a shabby apartment in London with Ronny and Lisbeth. He appoints himself unofficial guardian of Lisbeth, but without ever really understanding who she is. Like all others in her life, he is pretty sure he knows what is best for her. In his mind, his purpose is to protect and assist Lisbeth, keep Ronny out of trouble, and insure that when her fiancé returns to the country she is able to marry him and live the life she deserves.
My Thoughts
Literature written in the interwar periods of the 1920s and 30s in the UK is something I normally enjoy. I’m especially fond of the writing of the women of that era, so this one by Margery Sharp, who is known for her wit, seemed like it would be a hit! Unfortunately, I didn’t really like it.
It simply couldn’t hold my attention. The pacing was quite slow and I often found the reading rather tedious. There was some humor, but only sprinkled about in a rather stingy fashion. The only thing that kept me reading was my desire to learn what happened to the characters.
Everyone in Lisbeth’s life appreciated her in a rather superficial way. They didn’t seem to note her intelligence or her work ethic. They didn’t appreciate her loyalty to her brother. She took her responsibilities seriously, even when doing so risked her own well-being. It’s crystal clear to the reader, if to none of her acquaintances, that she doesn’t really want to marry Hugh, but having agreed to it she wouldn’t dream of hurting him or disappointing her family.
Mr. Partridge is a sad figure because he is aware that he doesn’t really know what his own place is in the world. He sees himself as an old man without purpose or prospects, and, as a result, he dedicates himself wholeheartedly to the cause of Lisbeth. He is bumbling and often judgmental. In many ways, he’s the most naive of the characters.
Aunt Mildred Pickering is another interesting character. Others see her as an old woman who is stifled by her Victorian attitudes. Yet in many ways, she views the world around her as if it is exactly like one of the romance novels she loves. Ultimately, it may be Aunt Mildred’s belief in the purity and importance of true love that saves the day.
I found the ending satisfactory and I’m glad I stuck with it, but it isn’t something I would read again.
The book opens in Dortmouth Bay, where we find Arthur Alfred Partridge employed in a small library where people can lease books for twopence a week. His job comes with a small kitchen behind the shop and a bedroom above and, for the most part, the work seems to suit him well enough. Then he meets Lisbeth and his world is turned upside down.
Lisbeth, an orphan without financial means, is a lovely young woman. She is the type of woman with whom men seem constantly to fall in love. However, she is engaged to an upright military man from a good family. Hugh, her fiancé, believes Lisbeth is absolute perfection, an angel incapable of wrong-doing.
Her brother, Ronny, is a different story entirely. Ronny has recently been released from prison and her family and fiancé are determined to keep Ronny and Lisbeth apart so that he does not sully her reputation. Lisbeth, however, does not find those arrangements suitable, and she sets about with a quiet determination to redeem her brother’s image - a fairly daunting task given Ronny lacks brains, skills, common sense or any real desire to change.
Through a comedy of errors, Mr. Partridge finds himself sharing a shabby apartment in London with Ronny and Lisbeth. He appoints himself unofficial guardian of Lisbeth, but without ever really understanding who she is. Like all others in her life, he is pretty sure he knows what is best for her. In his mind, his purpose is to protect and assist Lisbeth, keep Ronny out of trouble, and insure that when her fiancé returns to the country she is able to marry him and live the life she deserves.
My Thoughts
Literature written in the interwar periods of the 1920s and 30s in the UK is something I normally enjoy. I’m especially fond of the writing of the women of that era, so this one by Margery Sharp, who is known for her wit, seemed like it would be a hit! Unfortunately, I didn’t really like it.
It simply couldn’t hold my attention. The pacing was quite slow and I often found the reading rather tedious. There was some humor, but only sprinkled about in a rather stingy fashion. The only thing that kept me reading was my desire to learn what happened to the characters.
Everyone in Lisbeth’s life appreciated her in a rather superficial way. They didn’t seem to note her intelligence or her work ethic. They didn’t appreciate her loyalty to her brother. She took her responsibilities seriously, even when doing so risked her own well-being. It’s crystal clear to the reader, if to none of her acquaintances, that she doesn’t really want to marry Hugh, but having agreed to it she wouldn’t dream of hurting him or disappointing her family.
Mr. Partridge is a sad figure because he is aware that he doesn’t really know what his own place is in the world. He sees himself as an old man without purpose or prospects, and, as a result, he dedicates himself wholeheartedly to the cause of Lisbeth. He is bumbling and often judgmental. In many ways, he’s the most naive of the characters.
Aunt Mildred Pickering is another interesting character. Others see her as an old woman who is stifled by her Victorian attitudes. Yet in many ways, she views the world around her as if it is exactly like one of the romance novels she loves. Ultimately, it may be Aunt Mildred’s belief in the purity and importance of true love that saves the day.
I found the ending satisfactory and I’m glad I stuck with it, but it isn’t something I would read again.
May 14, 2026
A story is as surprising as it is delightful.
The scene opens on Mr. Partridge, a middle-aged Englishman playing hooky from his job minding a lending library in a coastal resort. He meets a rather conventional spinster, who is staying at a grand hotel in town with her niece, and slips in uninvited to take tea with them. He is a plausible rogue, but more feckless than devious, and he means no harm: he’s just bored. Based on this bare acquaintance, he involves himself in the niece’s life, though in the kindest way.
The niece, it turns out, is cut from the same cloth—not remotely honest but not wicked. She is the sort of young woman whom men adore on sight, and she tolerates them patiently. Just one problem: she has a very respectable fiancé, who happens to be out of the country on military duty for a time. He is prepared to sort out her disorderly life—which includes a ne’er-do-well brother just out of prison—but in the fiancé’s absence, his bride-to-be ignores all his plans. Mr. Partridge tags along to keep an eye on her and, he thinks, keep her out of trouble.
The young lady, Mr. Partridge, and the brother form an unusual household but rub along pretty well for a time, till a variety of destabilizing influences enter their world. Mr. Partridge makes a series of well-intentioned mistakes but things all come right in the end, thanks to a thief and the spinster. It’s all charmingly amoral, and a lot of fun. Margery Sharp sometimes goes too dark for my taste in her adult novels, but this one was just right.
The scene opens on Mr. Partridge, a middle-aged Englishman playing hooky from his job minding a lending library in a coastal resort. He meets a rather conventional spinster, who is staying at a grand hotel in town with her niece, and slips in uninvited to take tea with them. He is a plausible rogue, but more feckless than devious, and he means no harm: he’s just bored. Based on this bare acquaintance, he involves himself in the niece’s life, though in the kindest way.
The niece, it turns out, is cut from the same cloth—not remotely honest but not wicked. She is the sort of young woman whom men adore on sight, and she tolerates them patiently. Just one problem: she has a very respectable fiancé, who happens to be out of the country on military duty for a time. He is prepared to sort out her disorderly life—which includes a ne’er-do-well brother just out of prison—but in the fiancé’s absence, his bride-to-be ignores all his plans. Mr. Partridge tags along to keep an eye on her and, he thinks, keep her out of trouble.
The young lady, Mr. Partridge, and the brother form an unusual household but rub along pretty well for a time, till a variety of destabilizing influences enter their world. Mr. Partridge makes a series of well-intentioned mistakes but things all come right in the end, thanks to a thief and the spinster. It’s all charmingly amoral, and a lot of fun. Margery Sharp sometimes goes too dark for my taste in her adult novels, but this one was just right.
July 2, 2024
Pre-WW2 English farce. Parts of this are so witty and funny that I would compare it to Wodehouse...but it falters in several significant ways, particularly at the ending. The ending annoyed me rather than tying all the threads together.
November 22, 2024
#FurrowedMiddleBrowClub on Litsy - November 2024
May 26, 2021
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2022...
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2022...
June 9, 2021
Well, it's no Eye of Love or Nutmeg Tree or Flowering Thorn, but it was pleasant.
February 28, 2022
I enjoyed this cute little romp with charming characters, it’s a very soothing sort of read.
June 23, 2022
Lighthearted and witty.
September 9, 2023
This is the sixth novel I have read by Margery Sharp. It was an OK read but not as good, I feel, as ‘The Eye of Love’ (1957), ‘The Nutmeg Tree’ (1937), or ‘the Flowering Thorn (1933), but better than ‘Fanfare for Tin Trumpets’ (1932) and ‘The Stone of Chastity’ (1940).
In the books I liked by Sharp, she drew the reader in initially to one or two characters, so I actually cared about what happened to them as the novels progressed. In the two novels I was not too jazzed about, I did not care for many ‘Fanfare for Tin Trumpets’ or any ‘The Stone of Chastity’ of the characters throughout. In this novel I cared about Lisbeth near the end of the novel, but I wish Sharp would have drawn me in sooner.
Synopsis:
• 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 Ronnie, fresh from six months in prison for peddling cocaine (he thought it was baking powder, really he did!), with whom her stern, upright Army fiancé, expected back from India soon, has forbidden her further contact.
In a gloriously implausible but deliciously entertaining sequence of events, Mr. Partridge gets swept up in Lisbeth’s unusual efforts to get Ronnie safely squared. In the meantime, these three eccentric souls set up makeshift housekeeping in London and work at odd jobs (some very odd indeed) to make ends meet. ‘Harlequin House’, first published in 1939 and out of print for more than 60 years, has all the glitter and wit readers expect from the incomparable Margery Sharp.
I read from a recently re-issued Dean Street Press edition.
Reviews:
• https://leavesandpages.com/2015/01/25...
• http://rrhorton.blogspot.com/2021/05/...
• (lots of reviews at end of this review from when the book was published 80 years ago) https://margerysharp.wordpress.com/20...
In the books I liked by Sharp, she drew the reader in initially to one or two characters, so I actually cared about what happened to them as the novels progressed. In the two novels I was not too jazzed about, I did not care for many ‘Fanfare for Tin Trumpets’ or any ‘The Stone of Chastity’ of the characters throughout. In this novel I cared about Lisbeth near the end of the novel, but I wish Sharp would have drawn me in sooner.
Synopsis:
• 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 Ronnie, fresh from six months in prison for peddling cocaine (he thought it was baking powder, really he did!), with whom her stern, upright Army fiancé, expected back from India soon, has forbidden her further contact.
In a gloriously implausible but deliciously entertaining sequence of events, Mr. Partridge gets swept up in Lisbeth’s unusual efforts to get Ronnie safely squared. In the meantime, these three eccentric souls set up makeshift housekeeping in London and work at odd jobs (some very odd indeed) to make ends meet. ‘Harlequin House’, first published in 1939 and out of print for more than 60 years, has all the glitter and wit readers expect from the incomparable Margery Sharp.
I read from a recently re-issued Dean Street Press edition.
Reviews:
• https://leavesandpages.com/2015/01/25...
• http://rrhorton.blogspot.com/2021/05/...
• (lots of reviews at end of this review from when the book was published 80 years ago) https://margerysharp.wordpress.com/20...
August 31, 2026
“Harlequin House” reminded me of something Diana Wynne Jones once wrote about having to smuggle heroines into her books (a regular occurrence, that's the kind of thing that you start seeing everywhere once it's been pointed out). Jones was writing in a very different genre, of course, but there’s a similar concept here, I think. The novel is about Lisbeth Campion fighting against the efforts of everyone around her to put her into a box by separating her from her ne’er-do-well brother and generally making her boring and respectable. But Sharp wraps this story in another one, of Mr. Partridge, the elderly man who appoints himself as her guardian angel, which makes the novel both funnier and less plausible than it would be otherwise. I’m not really complaining, since it is funny, and sometimes very funny, and of course in the end Mr. Partridge is brought around to Lisbeth's point of view, but it does make the story somewhat slighter than it really needs to be. It’s quite possible, though, that Sharp felt that she couldn’t get a novel with a heroine like Lisbeth published in 1939 if it didn’t include a buffer of some kind.
June 30, 2026
I had considered this a four-star book for a long time, but the strength of its ending finally merited it a fifth star. The arresting quality of this story seems to be the very same one that its protagonist, Mr. Partridge, ultimately identifies in young Lisbeth . . . unpredictability. For sure, where the romance is concerned, it is quite easy to guess how the story might end, but the characters themselves and the manner in which the events unfold is refreshingly unique. "Harlequin House" succeeded in changing my opinion of Margery Sharp's ability to write an interesting book.
November 28, 2024
Middle aged Mr. Partridge takes a chance and hitches his star to young Lizbeth Campion, who is trying to reform her rather useless brother, Ronnie. The trio moves to London and finds an assortment of odd jobs, but will Ronnie stick with anything? And will Lizabeth marry her rather straitlaced fiancé, Captain Brocard, who very much approves of Ronnie?
This was a cute story. A little bit of adventure, a little bit of romance.
This was a cute story. A little bit of adventure, a little bit of romance.
September 6, 2025
A little silly, but still enjoyable, this book follows a the unconventional (for British relatively upper class mid-century white people) trajectory of a sister and brother pairing through the eyes of a likeable chancer.
March 28, 2026
Though the events of Harlequin House are somewhat extraordinary and definitely colorful, the most endearing aspect of it is how they occur through ordinary happenings. Margery Sharp is a master of infusing simple encounters and experiences with dramatic (and often hilarious) depth.
January 20, 2024
Dated humor, or maybe just not all that humorous.
March 12, 2025
Love Margery Sharp’s writing, as usual, but somehow found this to be a little less charming than some of her other books. Certainly a pleasant, distracting read.
April 23, 2025
A comedy of three misfits. Storyline didn’t flow and a host of very unlikable characters.
July 9, 2026
Fine. Nothing out of the ordinary for its kind.
January 16, 2026
⭐️⭐️⭐️½
July 8, 2025
This is a very pleasant, lighthearted story.
Our hero, Mr. Partridge likes to think of himself as unconventional and impulsively decides to help out a brother and sister even though never asked to do so. We follow the story though his eyes and witness his thoughts about the people around him. He has a lively imagination which sometimes plays him false and he is sometimes wrong in his opinions especially in the big things but you can't help feeling an affection for him. (The brother and sister not so much.) He is not as unconventional as he thinks he is and so seems unable to read between the lines.
There are some delightful minor characters and some of the conversations remind me slightly of P.G. Wodehouse. I think the author was probably a fan.
Our hero, Mr. Partridge likes to think of himself as unconventional and impulsively decides to help out a brother and sister even though never asked to do so. We follow the story though his eyes and witness his thoughts about the people around him. He has a lively imagination which sometimes plays him false and he is sometimes wrong in his opinions especially in the big things but you can't help feeling an affection for him. (The brother and sister not so much.) He is not as unconventional as he thinks he is and so seems unable to read between the lines.
There are some delightful minor characters and some of the conversations remind me slightly of P.G. Wodehouse. I think the author was probably a fan.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews