The Danvers Jewels and Sir Charles Danvers

by Mary Cholmondeley

I was on the point of leaving India and returning to England when he sent for me. At least to be accurate—and I am always accurate—I was not quite on the point but nearly for I was going to start by the mail on the following day.

358 pages, Paperback

Published February 28, 2007

About the author

Mary Cholmondeley was an English novelist.

The daughter of the vicar at St Luke's Church in the village of Hodnet, Market Drayton, Shropshire, England, where she was born, Cholmondeley spent much of the first thirty years of her life taking care of her sickly mother.

Selected writings
* The Danvers Jewels (1886)
* Sir Charles Danvers (1889)
* Let Loose (1890)
* Diana Tempest (1893)
* Devotee: An Episode in the Life of a Butterfly (1897)
* Red Pottage (1899)
* Prisoners (1906)
* The Lowest Rung (1908)
* Moth and Rust (1912)
* After All (1913)
* Notwithstanding (1913)
* Under One Roof (1917)

Reviews

[Ruthalwynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is two books. The first, The Danvers Jewels, is a pretty funny story narrated by a fellow returning from India and entrusted to deliver jewels to a family in England. The fellow is not very bright, totally unaware, and remains so throughout the story. In his writing, he's taking himself very seriously and yet all the way through you can see what a buffoon he is - as could the people who were out to steal the jewels.

Charles Danvers is one of the people in the family where the jewels are delivered to. He stood out so much in the story that I was happy to find (because I only downloaded the Danvers Jewels to begin with) that there was another whole book with his name in the title.

Sir Charles Danvers is a romance. It has some of the usual silly plot elements from the time it was written. Books from around then do tend to have complications, coincidences, and unnecessary intrigue. Yet I really like Mary Cholmondeley's writing, and I like her characters, and I find myself going back to read bits of this again and again.

[J. Rubino · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a compilation of two novels, by Mary Cholmondeley, the jewel theft mystery and a sequel that is more of a romance. I would give the first a solid 4 stars, probably a lower rating to the second.
Published several months before "A Study in Scarlet", "The Danvers Jewels" is a very entertaining, dark-around-the-edges mystery about the theft of valuable jewels.
Colonel Middleton - the engaging, if somewhat obtuse narrator - is entrusted by his critically ill military superior, Sir John Danvers, with carrying some valuable family jewels from India back to his nephew, Ralph, in England. Ralph is a younger son, but is favored over the rascally elder, Sir Charles Danvers, who becomes a suspect when, in the course of a large house party and some amateur theatricals, the jewels go missing.
The lively cast of characters, the classic house party mystery set-up are in the vein of the better Mary Roberts Reinhart and deserves a revival of classic mysteries published around the time of the early Conan Doyle.
Unfortunately, "Sir Charles Danvers" a sequel set several years later, does not live up to the predecessor. More of a romance with intrigue that involves secret identity, a bigamous marriage, it centers around the romance between the roguish Sir Charles and the heiress, Ruth Deyncourt. Sweet, but rather forgettable.