Britannia Mews, Margery Sharp
Britannia Mews, Margery Sharp
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Britannia Mews
A Novel

Author: Margery Sharp

Narrator: Anna Parker-Naples

Unabridged: 13 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/19/2018

Synopsis

Around the corner from the elegant townhouses on Albion Place is Britannia Mews, a squalid neighborhood where servants and coachmen live. In 1875, it’s no place for a young girl of fine breeding, but independent-minded Adelaide Culver is fascinated by what goes on there. Years later, Adelaide shocks her family when she falls in love with an impoverished artist and moves into the mews. But violence shatters Adelaide’s dreams. In a dangerous new world, she must fend for herself—until she meets a charismatic stranger and her life takes a turn she never expected.

A novel about social manners and mores reminiscent of Edith Wharton, this story of love, family, and the price one must pay for throwing off the shackles of convention is also a witty and incisive dissection of the “upstairs, downstairs” English class system of the last two centuries.

About Margery Sharp

Margery Sharp (1905-1991) is renowned for her sparkling wit and insight into human nature, both of which are liberally displayed in her critically acclaimed social comedies of class and manners. Born in Yorkshire, England, Sharp wrote pieces for Punch magazine after attending college and art school. In 1930, she published her first novel, Rhododendron Pie, and in 1938, married Maj. Geoffrey Castle. Sharp wrote twenty-six novels, three of which-Britannia Mews, Cluny Brown, and The Nutmeg Tree-were made into feature films, and fourteen children's books, including The Rescuers, which was adapted into two Disney animated films.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jaline on June 17, 2019

This novel is perfection. It is a brilliant, bountiful story with unforgettable characters, written with heart by an author whose expertise is both meticulous and fluid. We follow the story of Adelaide Lambert (née Culver) from her young childhood years in the 1800’s through to the last days of her l......more

Goodreads review by Mela on April 14, 2023

Margery Sharp wrote books of different genres. I have read only (for now) her coming-of-age, young-adult romance (Cluny Brown), a psychological study (Martha series), and now this kind of family saga (and social changes from the end of the XIX century to the end of IIWW). In each case, there was wit......more

Goodreads review by Abigail on November 12, 2022

Many of the female writers of midcentury Britain use their fiction to question the British class system; in Britannia Mews, Margery Sharp takes a wrecking ball to it. She targets upper-middle-class pretensions with relentless marksmanship and leaves them in the rubble of World War II London. (In fac......more

Goodreads review by Helen on January 27, 2018

Britannia Mews (1946) is my fourth Margery Sharp novel and probably my favourite so far. Beginning in the 1870s and taking us through to the 1940s, it follows the story of Adelaide Culver from childhood to old age. We first meet Adelaide as a curious ten-year-old exploring Britannia Mews, a London s......more

Goodreads review by Ali on February 14, 2016

Britannia Mews is the story of Adelaide Lambert – born Adelaide Culver – from childhood to very old age. Born into a prosperous Victorian family, as a child Adelaide would sneak round to the forbidden Britannia Mews tucked between the streets of conventional middle class homes. Here the coachmen fro......more

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