Martha, Eric and George by Margery Sharp

Martha’s passion is art, and all she wants to do is draw the world around her. Martha is a stolid and self-possessed little girl, a true individual who is sweetly oblivious to the cares and concerns of others and sails through life’s storms, set on the course that she knows is right for her. Wrapped around this romantic comedy is the beginning of the story of Martha, Miss Diver’s orphaned niece. The lovers are both distraught, and while Dolores struggles to manage without Harry’s financial and practical support, Harry struggles to work up any enthusiasm for the wedding and new home that his mother and his fiancée are happily planning. He didn’t like it at all, but he knew that he had to do the right thing Harry’s business was struggling, he had a chance to make that business – and his widowed mother’s life – secure, but that depended on his marrying the daughter of his new business partner. Harry & Dolores had happy years together, enjoying simple pleasures and precious hour that they spent together, but they were to be separated. I love that every single person I might pass in the street has their own life story to be told, and – I hope – somebody who sees them through the eye of love. She made me love them, and she made them utterly real.Ī rather eccentrically dressed lady I see in town might be a Miss Diver a quite unremarkable man I see dressed for business might be a Mr Gibson. She writes about them with great wit, with great affection, and with understanding of their foibles and their perception of each other, looking through the eye of love. In the hands of some authors such characters would appear silly or foolish but not in Margery Sharp’s hands. It tells the story of a middle-aged couple: Miss Dolores Diver, a rather gawky middle-aged lady, who wears a comb in hair and shawl around her shoulders because believes she has the looks and the character of a Spanish Rose type and Mr Harry Gibson, a rather stout gentleman who has inherited responsibility for his family business. ‘The Eye of Love’ is a quirky and charming fairy-tale romance like no other that I have ever read. When a whole set of Margery Sharp’s out of print books – including this one and its sequels – were sent back out into the world last year, by Open Road Media, I thought it might be time to revisit ‘The Eye of Love’.

Margery Sharp became one of my favourite authors! The founder of the Library Thing Virago group – a lovely lady named Paola – mentioned that Margery Sharp was one of her favourite authors, I liked the sound of this book, and so I picked up a copy. ‘The Eye of Love’was the first of Margery Sharp’s books I read, back in the days when it was a Virago Modern Classic.

Martha, Eric and George by Margery Sharp