The Gypsy in the Parlour

by Margery Sharp

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 novel

On 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 to the heat of a parlor—their pride and joy—as well as a scorching harvest field. And the men they chose for husbands are their equals. Today is cause for celebration: The youngest Sylvester brother is arriving with his bride-to-be.
 
But Fanny Davis will change all their lives. The slender, petite woman is given to unnamed ailments and is full of secrets. Where did she come from? What does she really want from the bumpkin she agreed to marry? None of the Sylvester ladies can imagine the tempest that will strike their peaceful farm when the deadly Miss Davis gets to work.
 
 

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, British Literature, Victorian, Humor, Classics

197 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Margery 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.

Reviews

[Jo Walton]

It's hard to put my finger on exactly what's so delightful about this novel. It's partly the point of view, an adult looking back on herself as a knowing child, giving a doubling and also a fascinating shadow space of what is known. It's partly the larger than life aunts, and their world. But it's mostly the beautifully turned improbable but perfect shape of the story. It's sharply fascinatingly wickedly funny.

Incidentally, I have written about Atwood's The Robber Bride as a feminist experiment at writing a book where all the major characters are women and men appear as prizes and incidental walk-ons. Sharp was there before her with this one, but of course nobody noticed.

Lovely book. Wish they'd change the title to "Stranger in the Parlour" so I could recommend it as enthusiastically as I'd like to. You wouldn't have to change a word of the text, as no gypsies/Roma appear in it, the word is just being used to mean a dark haired stranger -- the character in question is Welsh.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

The year is 1870, it is the height of summer, and on a Devonshire farm the three Sylvester women are anticipating the arrival of another to join their ranks.

"Themselves matched the day. The parlor 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 parlor 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."

Charlotte had arrived first, the bride of the eldest of four brothers. On her wedding night she unpacked her own sheets and goose-feather pillows and she gave the nuptial chamber a good turn-out before she undertook those other duties of a married woman to her husband's complete satisfaction. And the next morning she was up at dawn, serving hearty breakfasts.

She was a formidable woman of the very best kind; she cheerfully revolutionised the households, and she did a little match-making, resulting in brothers number two and three bringing home brides with the same physique, the same attitude to life, and the same work ethic.

They worked together wonderfully well - Charlotte, Grace and Rachel - and they raised fine sons and saw them off to distant corners of the British Empire, to establish farms of there own.

And then that the youngest of the four brother brought home a bride.

It was clear from the start that Fanny Davis would not be like the other Sylvester women. They were fair and magnificent; she was dark, small and weak. She had worked in a hat shop!

Charlotte accepted that Fanny Davis would not be working alongside her sisters-in law, that she would be different. Grace and Rachel agreed. The household found a new equilibrium.

On the eve of her wedding Fanny Davis developed a mysterious malaise. She could recline on the sofa in the parlour, she could receive visitors, but she could do no more than that. The doctor was baffled.

And so Fanny Davis, sly and self-willed, came to rule the household.

The pictures that Margery Sharp paints of the Sylvester household and the cuckoo in the nest are wonderful. Some of the credit must go to her inspired choice of narrator: Charlotte's eleven year-old niece who spends her winters with her family in London and her summers on the farm tells the story, some years after the events that she describes.

The pictures of the farm that she paints are so vivid, and her youthful perceptions are lovely:

"It wasn’t at that time, particularly uncommon. Ladies lay in declines all up and down the country…No common person ever went into one. Common persons couldn’t afford to. Also, there needed to be a sofa. No sofa, no decline."

Her narration is effective because she has a little more faith in Fanny Davis that others might, because she can be drawn into her orbit as her 'little friend', and because she has her own role to play in the story, in London.

I suspect that there is more than a little of the author in her character, and through her the author tells her story with the idiosyncratic, subversive wit that I have come to love. Nobody else could have told this story quite like this.

I wish I could tell you her name, but it is never given.

Aunt Charlotte cared for the 'invalid' but her young niece - quite innocently and inadvertently - effects a 'cure'. The Sylvester women are delighted - until the full story comes out.

I had a good idea of what was going to happen, but it was lovely watching the drama unfold. The joy really was in the telling.

I especially loved watching Charlotte take London by storm!

There were flaws in the story - the Sylvester men were horribly underwritten - but the number and the quality of the good things swept any reservations that I had away.

But I so loved the Sylvester women, I was delighted by the telling of the story that played out on the farm in Devon, and the end of that story was exactly right.

[Tina Rath · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend very kindly offered me a copy of this book and I seized on it, remembering it from my childhood. I may even have originally heard it read on Woman's Hour in those days when they did proper readings instead of dramatisations for those with the inability to listen to a human voice for a fifteen minute stretch... it is just as good as I remember - indeed, it's better. I love the narrator's asides, like her comment on her aunts' descriptions of the Frampton Assembly - 'in all my life, the only function that ever came up to my idea of Frampton Assembly was the third act of The Sleeping Beauty, as performed by the Ballet Russe'. It's sharp, clever, funny, romantic, with a wry and sharply realistic view of childhood - 'All children keep a great deal in their lives dark, not because they wish to, but because an almost physical impediment stops their mouths.' And it's a good story.
I shall start collecting Margery Sharp.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my God, I absolutely LOVED this!!

I've only read two other books by Margery Sharp, which I really, really enjoyed, though I think that, deep down, I knew I was still waiting to find one that would really blow my head off. "Cluny Brown" was great, but I wanted more of Cluny and less of the other characters and I wasn't so crazy about the ending. "The Nutmeg Tree" was also amazing, but I wasn't keen on the beginning section (though if I reread it now I'm sure I'd like it more in context of the whole story). This book, from beginning to end, was perfect.

Normally I'm not a fan of child narrators (though that's not really the case here.. you'll see!), but Margery Sharp draws you in immediately. I loveddddd all the characters, so rich and full of life and lovable and real. As for the story, the way it unfolds is written so masterfully and the characters and situations are so, so, so funny, especially the last 50 pages. This has one of the most satisfying conclusions to a book I've read in a long time! And the last two sentences made me cry (I'm a little loser). They actually kind of reminded me of the last few lines of Barbara Comyn's "Our Spoons Came From Woolworths", another one of my favorites.

If you've read other Margery Sharp books and haven't read this one, I highly, highly recommend it, and I hope you love it! I can't wait to read her others.

[Cirtnecce · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is 1870 Victorian England and the Sylvesters, large in stature and less in words, run a rich farm in Devonshire. Originally, the clan consisted of a father and his 4 sons who led a wild and barbaric life until the eldest son Tobias married Charlotte. Charlotte , a big blonde woman, took the men under her wing, civilized them, cleaned up the house and generally made life as good and comfortable as possible for the clan. She even found wives for the second and the third brother, Grace and Rachel. The three women got along brilliantly, working together, laughing together and managing the concerns and joys of the Sylvester as one. They all in time gave birth to boys, seven in all and they were all sent to Australia and Canada to better the fortunes, while Tobais and his brothers ran the farm. Things went on splendidly and finally in 1870, the youngest brother Stephen, brought home a girl whom he intended to take as a bride, whom he had Plymouth. Fanny Davis was nothing like the Sylvester woman, she was not built like them, small to their large and dark to their blonde. Nor could she seem to do the kind of back breaking work that the Sylvester women seem to do; however the Sylvester women, kind and gracious, let her alone and managed their lives as before. The date of wedding was fixed after two days of the Assembly, which was a great social event of Frampton, the town around which the farm was located. To add to the atmosphere of gaiety, Charles, the eldest son of Tobais returned form Australia. There was a new peacock colored brocade cloth bought so that Fanny Davis could look splendid on the night of the ball and the Sylvesters could take pride from the same. The much awaited ball finally happened and was as much of a success as was expected. However, things began to go downhill from the very next day and the Sylvesters, especially the women were put to test like never before, threatening the home and the joy they had worked all their lives to build.

This is a lovely novel with wonderful characters and fast paced plot, that keeps you turning to the next page. The novel again goes to show that while stories about human relations are old as hill, the ability and the craft of the author can make the book not only readable, but lovable! The characters took my breathe away – you cannot help but cheer on the great Sylvester woman, especially Charlotte and wish you had an aunt like her …kind, generous, patient and decisive. Fanny Davis and Clara Blow are two characters that wonderfully and in a very unique manner showcase two spectrum of human nature. The only character I could not abide by was Charles, but as the narrator said “Charlie was incorrigible”. Speaking of the narrator, Ms. Sharp makes a very innovative choice of telling the story through the voice of now much older, but then an 11 year old niece of Charlotte who visits the farm every summer for her health. There is constant balance of the 11 year old acting and the older adult version telling us of that action and what led to that particular. The reader gets a constant sense of how the child perceives something and how the same child would interpret the same event/action as an adult! The language is simple and beautiful, and the portrayals so vivid ….I could see the farm, I could see the much prided parlor, I could see Jackson’s Economical Saloon and I could see Charlotte riding the omnibus in London!

Sharp, funny, witty and heartwarming…..you cheer the Sylester women on, from the beginning till the end and you close the book with warm, fuzzy feeling of goodwill all around!

[Cookie M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely Margery Sharp story about a big nineteenth Century British farm family ruled lovingly by the large, strong women who have married into it, and what happens when a woman who doesn't fit the mold tries to marry in and take over. All this is told by the young niece of the family who.spends her summers with them, and who is a very interested and involved observer. A delight to read.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Victorian era story of some suspense, told through the eyes of a child, of her Devon relatives that she visits each summer. We never know her name, just that she is a niece and lives in London, but I remained fuzzy on the exact family connection. We get to know the Sylvester family really well, at least on the female side, and how they are manipulated by their prospective sister-in-law, from her parlor couch, as she becomes an invalid. Things were touch and go, but finally come round satisfactorily. Margery Sharp is a great storyteller.

[Mo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the story, but did not much care for the broad country dialect adopted by the author for several of her characters.

“Hark to me, bors,” said my Aunt Charlotte. “There’s women catch men by beauty, and others that catch ’em by worth. Us three, and why not speak it, caught our men by both.”

“So far as concerns Matthew, ’twas all made up ’twixt ’ee and I,” said my Aunt Grace calmly.

“Ah, but he’d never have taken ’ee without your beauty,” retorted Charlotte. “That’s a Sylvester male all over—wants the earth and also the moon. But there’s some women catches ’em by something other; ’tis not beauty—for to me Fanny’s no more than an emmet—and not by worth, for she knows naught to any purpose. ’Ee might call it a kind of female charm; which I say she must possess, or how would young Stephen be so beguiled?” - The Gypsy in the Parlor

[Reading with Cats · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe I'm just an uncharitable cow, but I *really* wanted something much worse to happen to the awful Fanny.

[Allison Fowler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love all of Margery Sharp's books. If you haven't started reading them yet, start now. Such insight and originality - fun, fun books!

[Chrisanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This had its problems (the title is obviously one of them*) but the style is unparalleled--- told by an adult, but experienced as a child and the naive but wise, observational tone is lovely.

The rowdy, semi-dated family atmosphere brings a nostalgic feeling. Also enjoyable is the view of a family where women rule the manor/farm. It's not a normal period piece. Nor is it a unique story. But Sharp verbally illustrates it incredibly well.

*Title refers to hair color. The term's not even used in the book. But it's definitely one of the few issues with the book.

[Desiree · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have absolutely no idea where this came from, but it was on my bookshelf. Perhaps it was my grandparents' and I took it because it has the word "Gipsy" in it? (Spelled that way not Gypsy, incidentally)?

Fun, cute, and fascinating, especially the differences in language (British, 1950s, set in the previous century).

[Deana David Lissenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I love to read something this old that reads like it might have been written yesterday. The humor is so modern and very quirky. The writing is impeccable. I just ordered a couple more of her books.

[Lisa May · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is now my favorite of her books, after The Flowering Thorn. Such a lovely warm story.

[Trisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in 1870 primarily in and around an idyllic farm in Devon, England, this was a quick and enjoyable read. It’s filled with atmospheric touches and colorful, if unconventional, characters – including the four uncommunicative Sylvester brothers who figure mostly in the background since what makes the book so much fun are their three robust wives who pretty much run the house.

The book begins with the three good natured sisters-in-law all dressed up and sitting in the parlor, awaiting the arrival of the youngest brother’s fiancée Fanny Davis, who from her first appearance leaves the reader with the impressive that she’s up to something.

But since the novel unfolds from the perspective of the Sylvester women’s niece, a little girl who spends her summers at the farm and is an avid reader of romantic novels, we’re not entirely sure that her impressions of what’s going on are all that accurate. (And they’re not.)

Shortly before Fanny’s wedding is to happen she is suddenly taken ill with what is commonly referred to in Victorian parlance as “being in decline.” The wedding stays postponed for the next several years and all the while Fanny is waited on, hand and foot, in the parlor where the mystery around her grows. Especially since it soon becomes clear to everyone but the Sylvester sisters that she is carrying on a secret correspondence with someone who ends up being the first born son of the first born Sylvester brother. From then on the reader begins to suspect that something very fishy is going on. Indeed it is, and how it finally all comes to light is one of the things that makes this such a delightful novel to read.

[William Leight · Rating 3 out of 5]

[2.5 stars really]

My least favorite of the Sharp novels I’ve read so far, “The Gipsy in the Parlor” is told by someone looking back on her childhood and the time she used to spend visiting her country relatives. The childhood, in London, was a miserable one, with the visits to the country serving as oases of happiness, and yet at the same time the narrator regards her country cousins with considerable condescension. They are not just a part of the narrator’s childhood, they are essentially children themselves. This is most visible in the treatment of the titular character, who is not Roma at all. Instead, she's a minor-league schemer, whose small-town wiles, though obvious and pathetic — as is made clear when she comes to London and tries to use them on the narrator’s father, a lawyer — are enough to stymie the country cousins for a year. The other person fooled by the figurative gipsy is, of course, the narrator at age 10: the cousins are, implicitly, at a similar mental level. It’s still amusing, and the scenes in London are better than the scenes in the country, but the book is far too reliant on its caricature of good-hearted but stupid country people, especially since every dig at the false sophistication and transparent tricks of their antagonist underlines how dumb they must be to not have defeated her yet. Sharp is always readable, but this one should not be high on your list.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good! How did I not know about Margery Sharp earlier? After Cluny Brown I turned to this, and it's as good if not better. (I'm not disturbed by the 'gypsy' in the title. 99.99% of the people back then would have no idea that this was considered pejorative. And language changes: maybe one day we'll have to skip Jane Austen because 'pride' becomes an offensive thing to mention, who knows?)

Anyway, to the book itself: marvelous. I wasn't sure what kind of book it was going to be (perhaps some Willa Cather-ish ode to hard-working farm folk), but it rapidly became clear it was 100% my kind of book, charming, funny, light (in the best sense of the world), with crystal-clear characters, easily differentiated, a rollicking forward-driving plot (consisting almost everything of import happened in one of three rooms (parlor, kitchen, restaurant), this is a miracle). There were beautifully written passages, funny sections, delightful paragraphs, it was just a treat. Perfect pre-Christmas vacation reading.

(5* = amazing, terrific book, one of my all-time favourites, 4* = very good book, 3* = good book, but nothing to particularly rave about, 2* = disappointing book, and 1* = awful, just awful. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The "gypsy" of the title is a young Welsh woman taken from Portsmouth to Devon to marry a farmer's youngest son. The only thing "gypsy" about her is her dark hair and eyes, and the airs and graces our narrator (a girl about 10 years old) imbues her with, thanks to said little girl's overactive imagination and fondness for romantic novels of the sillier sort, which--oh, horrors!--she gets from her mother's procession of ever changing cooks and maidservants. But hardly does said betrothal take place when the young woman goes into a decline and enjoys poor health for two years, living in her prospective mother in law's best parlour and being waited on hand and foot.
Sharp by name and sharp by nature, the author's dry wit is very much to the fore. Our narrator considers that she herself makes things happen by rushing in where angels wouldn't even dare to tiptoe; the reader comes to their own conclusions.
I liked the description of farm life, and the reverse snobbism of the Sylvester wives who look down on the "gypsy" because she's not like them; after all the prospective groom chose for himself instead of allowing his sisters in law to find him a match! And not only is she a townie, she's -gasp! - a milliner! Whatever that means. Still, I'm sure the story was funnier in 1953 than it is 70 years later. But in August heat it required nothing of me, and that was pleasant in itself.

[Janet]

I don't recall who recommended this book to me. I do remember that they said the title was offensive, but the book was wonderful. The Goodreads info on the date this was published is wrong -- it's actually copyright 1953, when this kind of open bigotry was more mainstream. It's not just the "gypsy" in the title that's offensive. A lazy, manipulative Welsh woman is called a gypsy at one point. There's a reference to gypsies having camped by the house back when it was empty, and a donkey having invaded the kitchen -- this may be meant as a sort of imagery of a gypsy threat to the safety and stability of the farm and its family, like the threat of the Welsh woman.

Aside from the stink of the bigotry, it is a good book. I always love an unreliable narrator, and a lot of it is told from the point of view of a young girl who is sent to her Devon relatives for the summer for her health. She's unhappy in London with her fashionable parents, and adores the farm with the 3 hearty sisters-in-law, and 4 large, silent brothers. The happy life of the farm is thrown into turmoil when the youngest brother chooses his own bride, and she -- most emphatically! -- does NOT fit in.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a light and delightful read. I found a copy of this book in one of the little free libraries in my neighborhood. Sharp is the author of the Miss Bianca books, one of which I wrote about in my senior thesis on mouse illustrations in young adult novels. There is definitely problematic use of the word gipsy to mean anyone with darker hair, which is unfortunate. But the story itself is fun and light. And the books is all about the world of women in a period piece novel. The men are stock characters that matter little when it is the women who run the homes and the hold the narrative in this book. There is infection affection for all the indomitable aunts and even the insidious interloper, the eponymous gipsy, is a pretty charming character. I think it can be easy to get annoyed with young protagonist's attempts to understand the workings of the adult world, but really I just enjoyed the sweetness of this novel from start to finish.

[Kilian Metcalf · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first Margery Sharp novel I read was Cluny Brown, and I've been hooked ever since. It could have been any one of them, really. They are all witty and insightful. Her character descriptions are so sharp, the people live in your memory.

This story tells of a young, impressionable girl who is easily taken in by a sharp young woman who is willing to take advantage of the good will of others. Of course, she gets her comeuppance in the end, but the delight is in reading of her unmasking.

Most satisfying.

My blog:

The Interstitial Reader
https://theinterstitialreader.wordpre...

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wrote a paper on the Romani people (Gypsies) in college and along the way my Dh picked up this book for me at an Antique store by the strength of the name alone. I had read at it through the years, but not read it cover to cover until it was mentioned on link: What Should I Read Next. There are no Romanis to be seen in the novel, it's a Victorian comedy of errors about what happens when a city Bride-to-Be moves into the household run by the wife of the oldest son of a farm family. Told through the eyes of a young relative who visits during the summers, it's a sweet story.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I may have mistaken Muriel Spark for Margery Sharp.
Anyway, the thing Margery Sharp does well is set up a reader's expectation (as in 'this is going to be this kind of story, with these kind of characters'...), then twist it so we don't know what to expect, and, in this particular case, twist it again. It's a bit like reading what you think is a Western and then it begins to feel like a Fairy Tale, but ends up like Huck Finn. It's weird-good if done right. I didn't love this attempt, but I appreciate the style. I would read more Margery Sharp just to see if she pulls it off next time.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a young girl searching dusty antique shops for books, I picked up this book with zero expectations. I read it and immediately fell in love. I’ve reread it since then and it’s still just as good. Such great descriptions of strong willed women and family dynamics that are more fragile than we realize. This book shows how one person can be the discordant, destructive note that spoils the entire symphony of life.

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It was well written and I really enjoyed the characters. I loved the little mystery and how it played out. I think Aunt Charlotte showed such great humanity compassion. The only thing I didn't like about the book was that I had a hard time with the dialect. I look forward to reading another Margery Sharp novel.

[Momruns5 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute story told from the perspective of a nosy and sometimes mistaken girl. Miscommunication and misunderstandings ensue. But I think because of the time period this book was written..it did seem to take a lot of words to tell a little story. Sometimes I was like... I get it!!! Move on!!

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

How many ways can I love this book? Sharp spins a fine tale of greed and deceit, goodness and naivete here. Such a consummate storyteller! Well worth reading, especially if you love a good Devon burr - the author's ear for accent and language is pitch perfect.

[Jeana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet little book about a girl who spends her summers in the country with relatives and becomes the “little friend” of the gipsy in the parlor. First half is a bit slow but I very much enjoyed reading it!

[Kathryn Etchison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Margery Sharp

Her works have some age to them but her characters are universal; she looks at human beings clearly and with humor, writing of our foibles and frailties with affection and without judgement. Enjoyable and satisfying, wearing well down the years.

[Little Red Readinghood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written but not one of her best.