I was VERY excited when I saw that the Furrowed Middlebrow series from Dean Street Press will be reprinting many Margery Sharp and Stella Gibbons titles in January. Do I have many books by both these authors still unread? Yes, of course. But it’s still great to be able to get easily available copies of books that have eluded many fans for years – most notably Rhododendron Pie by Sharp, something of a golden fleece for book bloggers.
Dean Street Press have kindly sent me that as a review book, but I have started with the other one they sent – one I’ve had my eye on for a while: The Stone of Chastity by Margery Sharp, from 1940. I had high hopes, because the next novel she wrote is probably my favourite of the seven Sharps I’ve read, Cluny Brown. And the premise is irresistible: there is a little village called Gillenham where there was reputed to be a ‘stone of chastity’ in the stream. It was a stepping stone that any ‘unchaste’ woman would stumble on – sort of like one of those medieval witch trials, though believed to have been around in the time of the current population’s grandparents.
Professor Pounce arrives in the village, with his widowed sister-in-law and his young adult nephew Nicholas, intending to investigate the legend. Oh, and there’s also the beautiful, distant Carmen, whose presence is not quite explained. It’s a delightful set up – because the Professor can’t understand why anybody would find his investigations impertinent or insulting. As his sister-in-law points out, people might be offended at his prurient questions about their grandmother’s purity – but he has only science in mind. Nicholas, meanwhile, has other things in mind – and begins to fall both for Carmen and for a Bloomsbury-type who is staying in the village and writing terrible verse-set-to-music.
Nicholas’s objections to distributing the Professor’s questionnaire are disregarded, and he sets off to an unsympathetic local community. Here’s a sample of Sharp’s delightful prose:
Wobbling down the road next morning, on a borrowed bicycle with the bundle of questionnaires stacked in its carrier, Nicholas Pounce felt himself to be, both literally and figuratively, in a very precarious position. He was practically certain that only the front brake worked, and he was extremely apprehensive as to the effect upon its recipients of his Uncle Isaac’s questionnaire. By a curious chance all the villagers he passed were able-bodied males. Some of them said “Mornin'” to him, and Nicholas said “Good morning” back. He said it ingratiatingly. In each stolid pair of eyes he detected, or thought he did, a complete lack of scientific interest and a fanatic regard for the good name of woman.
As I’ve said before, Sharp is equally good at funny and poignant – and in The Stone of Chastity, she is in full comic mode. It reminded me a lot of R.C. Sherriff’s equally delightful The Wells of St Mary’s – a local village dealing with the unexpected introduction of the miraculous, and responding with the sort of village politics that have changed little in the decades since. Factions are formed, rumours spread and, yes, the stone itself turns up.
Thanks so much, Dean Street Press and Scott from Furrowed Middlebrow, for bringing back this wonderful novel – like so many of Sharp’s books, it deserves to be a modern classic. Incidentally, it seems to have reprinted a number of times – check out the range of cover images it has received over time.
Sounds delightful! Thank you for the recommendation.
I think it might well end up on my Best Of The Year list
Woweee….! Thanks for this Simon. I see that Furrowed Middlebrow, along with Rhododendron Pie, have also republished A Fanfare for Tin Trumpets which is an absolute find. I’ve been after this, her first book I think, for years. A Happy New Year indeed!
Hurrah! Yes, and Harlequin House too. Saving some of us an awful lot of time and money hunting for her books!
I loved this when I read it a year or so ago. I am always impressed by how her humour does not date.
Yes! At her best, she is totally timeless.
This sounds a perfect Christmas read. Thanks for the suggestion.
I think it would work perfectly for a relaxing Boxing Day :D
Sounds great fun, Simon. So good to see these Sharps being reissued!
My heart leapt for joy when I saw the announcement!
This one sounds fun! I haven’t read Margery Sharp before . . . time to remedy this perhaps?
Absolutely! She is one of the most underrated writers, IMO.
I have Rhododendron Pie on my shelf reading to read, and my review of Stone of Chastity is coming up next month. These are great fun!
Oo will look forward to that, Kay
Ooh lovely, this does sound really delightful. Hooray for DSP!
Hooray indeed! Some of these titles are impossible to find.
LOL some of those covers are hilarious: I was particularly taken by the one reminiscent of Elek’s Zola covers, the woman flaunting her suspenders!
Aren’t they something??
Oooh, you just made me about 10 times more excited than I already was to order and read the DSP Sharps! I keep checking my local indie bookstore website for them, even though I know they won’t be available until January. I’m so glad you enjoyed this one, and I’m definitely going to move it to the top of my list.
Marvellous! I’ve only experienced a small taster of Margery Sharp’s work so far – a short story in a Virago WW2 anthology — but it was more than good enough to encourage me to seek out more. How wonderful to see these reissues coming through from DSP, something to look forward to in the new year.