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Patricia Brent, Spinster

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First published: 1918
Pages: 251

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Read by Anna Simon · 6 h 43 min · 21 parts

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Patricia’s Indiscretion
18:28
The Bonsor-Triggs’ Menage
18:32
The Adventure at the Quadrant Grill-room
21:38
The Madness of Lord Peter Bowen
18:54
Patricia’s Revenge
20:03
The Intervention of Aunt Adelaide
29:54
Lord Peter promises a Solution
14:24
Lord Peter’s S.O.S.
15:08
Lady Tanagra takes a Hand
17:31
Miss Brent’s Strategy
14:58
The Defection of Mr. Triggs
20:16
A Bombshell
25:30
A Tactical Blunder
11:06
Galvin House meets a Lord
19:40
Mr. Triggs takes Tea in Kensington Gardens
28:30
Patricia’s Inconstancy
24:02
Lady Peggy makes a Friend
17:04
The Air Raid
17:10
Galvin House after the Raid
15:19
A Race with Spinsterhood
20:14
The Greatest Indiscretion
15:26

Patricia Brent, Spinster (1918) is a public domain work.

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About this book

Patricia Brent, Spinster is a novel by Herbert George Jenkins, the English novelist and publisher who lived from 1876 to 1923. The novel was published in 1918 and became Jenkins's most popular and most enduring work, going through many editions in Britain and the United States across the following decades.

The central character is Patricia Brent, a young Englishwoman of intelligence and spirit who lives in a London boarding house with various other unmarried women whose constant condescension about her single state has begun to wear on her patience. In a moment of provoked invention, Patricia announces to the other boarders that she is engaged to be married to a Major Brown and that she will be dining with him at a particular restaurant on a particular evening. The announcement is entirely fictional. The other boarders, suspecting Patricia of inventing the engagement, decide to go to the same restaurant to catch her in the lie.

Faced with the prospect of public humiliation, Patricia takes a desperate step at the restaurant. She approaches a young officer she has never met, explains her predicament, and asks him to play the part of Major Brown for the evening. The officer, recognizing the situation immediately and being himself amused by it, agrees. The dinner is a complete success and the boarders return defeated. Patricia and her fictional Major Brown go their separate ways assuming the matter is closed.

The rest of the novel works through the various complications that arise as the fictional engagement turns out to have unexpected consequences. The young officer, whose actual name turns out to be different from the Major Brown identity he assumed, finds himself becoming genuinely interested in the young woman who pulled him into the deception. Patricia, who has the strength of character to handle her own affairs but who is also clearly drawn to the man who helped her out of an embarrassing situation, must work out what she actually wants.

The novel is a romantic comedy with the kind of light social observation that English popular fiction of the period did particularly well. It runs about three hundred pages and reads quickly. For readers who enjoy classic English romantic comedy from the early twentieth century, this is one of the more pleasant examples. It pairs naturally with the work of Jenkins's contemporaries Hugh Walpole and Anthony Hope.

About the author

Herbert George Jenkins

Herbert George Jenkins combined authorship with a career in British publishing. Malcolm Sage, Detective collects cases featuring an observant investigator who enters private practice after government intelligence work, while Patricia Brent, Spinster uses a fabricated engagement to set a social comedy in motion.