Martha, Eric and George by Margery Sharp

'I absolutely believe it is fatal ever to write below your best, even if what you write may never be published.This review is written in celebration of Margery Sharp’s birthday on January 25th, 2016.'The Notorious Tenant' (1956), short story on which the movie The Notorious Landlady was based.The Lost Chapel Picnic and Other Stories (1973).Martha, Eric and George (1964) – Martha Trilogy III.Martha in Paris (1962) – Martha Trilogy II.The Eye of Love (1957) – Martha Trilogy I.Britannia Mews (1946), which was made into the film The Forbidden Street.Cluny Brown (1944), which was made into a movie of the same title.Three Companion Pieces (1941) – contains Sophy Cassmajor, The Tigress on the Hearth and The Nymph and the Nobleman.The Nutmeg Tree (1937), which was made into the film Julia Misbehaves.In 2008 all of her adult books except for The Eye of Love were out of print, but in 2016 Kindle editions of ten of her novels were issued.

Sharp died in Aldeburgh, Suffolk on 14 March 1991. In 1977 Walt Disney Productions released the animated feature film The Rescuers, which had critical acclaim and financial success, followed by a sequel, The Rescuers Down Under, in 1990. Sharp continued the series with a further eight books, illustrated by Garth Williams – who had previously illustrated other children's classics such as Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little – and Erik Blegvad. In 1959 she published The Rescuers, and though written for an adult audience it became hugely popular with children.

The 1963 film The Notorious Landlady was based on her 1956 short story 'The Notorious Tenant'. The rights for the novel Britannia Mews were bought in 1946 by 20th Century Fox, and it was released as The Forbidden Street in 1949.

One of her most popular novels, Cluny Brown, the story of a plumber's niece turned parlourmaid, was also made into a Hollywood film by Ernst Lubitsch in 1946, with Academy Award winner Jennifer Jones in the title role. In 1948 the book was adapted into the Hollywood film Julia Misbehaves, starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. In 1940 her seventh novel, The Nutmeg Tree, was adapted into a Broadway play, The Lady in Waiting. During World War II she worked for three years as an Army Education Lecturer during this time she wrote the novel Cluny Brown and worked on Britannia Mews, which described the bombing of London. In 1938 she married aeronautical engineer Major Geoffrey Castle. Sharp's first novel, Rhododendron Pie, took her a month to write and was published in 1930. She went on to write for a number of American and British magazines, including Harper's Bazaar, Ladies' Home Journal and Good Housekeeping.

Punch magazine began publishing her stories when she was 21.

Martha, Eric and George by Margery Sharp