Margery Sharp Books in Order

Ann feels out of place among her family's sophisticated artists and intellectuals, preferring ordinary pleasures and human company. When she brings home an unfashionably conventional fiancé, their competing ideas of taste and happiness become impossible to ignore.

An inheritance allows young Alistair to move to London and pursue writing. Life in a lively boarding house provides more distraction than discipline, especially when he falls for an actress determined to marry someone who can advance her career.

A fashionable young Londoner impulsively adopts an orphaned boy and moves to the countryside to raise him. Adjusting to village life and a child's needs gradually challenges her assumptions about society, pleasure and the possibility of lasting happiness.

Caroline Smith's life unfolds through four gardens, from spaces she cannot quite claim to one finally her own. Marriage, children, social expectations and changing circumstances shape her search for a place of quiet independence and contentment.

A free-spirited mother joins her proper daughter in France, intending to support her engagement. Discovering the fiancé may suit her better than her daughter complicates matters, especially when another attractive visitor arrives and her efforts at respectability begin to unravel.

Professor Pounce visits an English village to investigate a legendary stone said to expose unchaste women. His supposedly scientific tests provoke outrage, drawing relatives, villagers and the local clergy into a battle between curiosity, propriety and romantic complications.

Three novellas follow romances disrupted by the realities behind their conventions. A baronet pursues a French dancer, a young woman encounters love at sea, and an Albanian woman brings her forceful loyalties into an English household.

Sent into domestic service to learn her place, unconventional Cluny Brown brings her appetite for life to an aristocratic household. As its inhabitants worry about romance, social expectations and approaching war, her refusal to conform quietly changes those around her.

A restless widower becomes involved with Lisbeth and her troublesome brother, recently released from prison. Their improvised London household and unusual jobs offer freedom and complications, while Lisbeth tries to reconcile family loyalty with her fiancé's strict expectations.

Adelaide defies her respectable family by marrying an impoverished artist and moving into a nearby slum. When violence destroys her hopes, she must learn to survive independently in a world far removed from the sheltered life she left.

After the war, kindhearted widow Isabel tries to make amends to a relative whose romance she once obstructed. Inviting the woman into an already uneasy household unleashes manipulation and resentment that threaten everyone's fragile return to ordinary life.

Raised in France for a place in high society, orphaned Lise returns to an England transformed by war. While her controlling aunt plans a suitable marriage, competing admirers and practical Somerset relatives complicate the future arranged for her.

A farming family in Victorian Devon welcomes a brother's mysterious new fiancée. Her delicate manners, unexplained ailments and hidden ambitions unsettle the household, exposing vulnerabilities beneath the sturdy routines and apparent harmony of their rural lives.

During the Depression, Harry considers marrying for money to save his failing business, abandoning the woman he loves. Dolores's observant young niece Martha becomes caught among adult schemes that may yet offer another solution to their predicament.

The Prisoners’ Aid Society sends pampered mouse Miss Bianca to help free a Norwegian poet from the feared Black Castle. Joined by brave Nils and loyal Bernard, she must cross dangerous territory and evade cats to reach him.

A dog named Melisande rises from humble circumstances to become a celebrated opera singer. Told through illustrations rather than dialogue, her changing fortunes offer a comic view of musical fame and the society that gathers around a new star.

A London dog photographer is generous with the men who depend on her help, but tired of being taken for granted. Deciding to marry well, she applies her practical determination to finding a husband and reassessing what companionship should offer.

Young painter Martha travels to postwar Paris for a year of study, intent on developing her art. An affair with a homesick British bank clerk brings unexpected consequences, which she approaches with the same determined practicality that guides her creative life.

Miss Bianca learns that a wicked duchess has kidnapped an eight-year-old girl. The courageous mouse undertakes another rescue mission, bringing her determination and ingenuity to the challenge of freeing a child from a powerful human captor.

A picnic honoring Miss Bianca leads to a discovery: someone is imprisoned in an old turret. The mouse sets out to organize another rescue, with help from a magnificent stallion who becomes an unlikely ally.

An established painter, Martha returns to Paris for an exhibition and faces the son she left behind ten years earlier. Meeting George challenges the independence she has guarded and reveals a family connection she cannot treat as unfinished business indefinitely.

A boy takes responsibility for his little sister and their dog during a visit to the fair. When his sister disappears among the attractions, the outing becomes a search that tests his promise to keep them together.

Cathy Pennon returns to England from the Mediterranean during the First World War, carrying memories of a warmer childhood. As her family scatters and she becomes a nursery governess, she struggles against social expectations and longs for her island home.

Miss Bianca and her fellow Rescuers confront an unexpected danger in the salt mines, where a city built on their own tiny scale threatens to become their undoing as they pursue their latest adventure.

After banker Arthur Prelude apparently dies in a plane crash, his family begins reshaping his memory to suit themselves. Then his surviving wife questions whether he's dead at all, prompting their youngest daughter and a cousin to investigate in France.

Miss Bianca and her loyal companion Bernard journey to the Antarctic to rescue an old friend. Their mission becomes a struggle of their own when they are stranded in the remote region they hoped to escape.

As president of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, Miss Bianca takes on a desperate mission in the Orient. A young court page has been condemned to death, and she must try to save him from a merciless ruler.

Rosa, born outside marriage to a British groom, grows up with a connection to the household that once employed her father. Her future becomes entangled with that family, bringing questions of social position and personal ambition into focus.

The disappearance of a bride’s sister on the eve of the wedding sends Miss Bianca and Bernard searching for her. Their rescue becomes stranger and more urgent when they suspect a vengeful doll has enchanted the missing girl.

A woman caring for a friend’s young daughter forms a deep bond with the child after war separates her from her parents. Their quiet life is threatened when the girl’s mother returns and demands to take her away.

Twelve stories explore family rituals, unexpected encounters and the complications of everyday life. In the title story, memories of the Bly family's rainy bicycle picnics reveal how a shared outing can gather decades of associations and private history.

A charitable foundation provides support for elderly domestic servants who have little money. Through the people who administer the trust and those who depend on it, the novel examines relationships shaped by service, generosity, and social position.

Bernard, secretary of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, sets out to rescue an orphaned heiress kidnapped by her guardian. With a teddy bear named Algernon as his ally, the mouse faces a mission demanding unusual courage.

A prosperous cotton merchant establishes his family at Cotton Hall, where successive summers bring visitors, romances, disappointments, and unexpected heirs. Across several decades, changing family fortunes reveal the tensions hidden beneath the routines of an English country home.

An army of rats invades the area beneath the ambassador’s cellar, placing Miss Bianca’s world under threat. Her trusted lieutenant Bernard takes command of a dangerous operation to drive the intruders out and defend their territory.