Genre: 20th century English literature
Topics: Marriage, spinster, domestic, boarding house
Review by : Liz Inskip-Paulk at Just One More Page
Published in 1918 by his own publishing company, Herbert Jenkins’s novel, Patricia Brent, Spinster, was a pretty fast read once it got going. It’s a plot that’s been well used before: an unmarried young woman (about early 20’s) lives in a boarding house with the usual cast of misanthropes and narrow-minded “paying guests” having to eat a rotating menu that never changes (similar to how many of their own lives play out, it seems). Small talk and gossip rule the day, and so young Patricia Brent decides that she can’t take the monotony anymore and invents a fiancé for herself.
As the story continues, Brent leaves the
boarding house for dinner with her “fiancé” at a well-known restaurant in
London without having the faintest idea of how this will turn out in the end.
Fortune smiles on her, and she meets a young army officer who, serendipitously,
is also dining alone and willing to play along with her plan. Days and weeks go
by and the fake fiancé really ends up falling in love with her, except she
decides that she can’t have someone actually fall in love with her and rejects
him, despite all his intentions otherwise.
His family become involved, his sister comes
up with a strategy to make Patricia become more attracted to her brother (the fiancé)
and so it goes. It was an ok read, but Patricia was pretty unreasonable in how
she acts with the friendly fake fiancé and rejects him for little reason apart
from he likes her (which wasn’t in the plan).
It’s a caper novel, which worked for the most
part, although at times, I rolled my eyes at the female protagonist’s immature
behavior. However, this was written back in 1918 and it’s pretty true to the
times for some people (regardless of gender), I would think. Author Jenkins
also owned the publishing company who first started to publish all the P. G.
Wodehouse spoofs so I don’t think this volume was intended to be deep and
meaningful.
It was not a bad read, by any means, but it
was somewhat more superficial than I had thought it was going to be. It was a
bit uncomfortable to read at times as it was SO mean towards innocent people at
times.
Download Patricia Brent, Spinster by Herbert Jenkins at Project Gutenberg|Librivox|
