[A Summer Bird-Cage] is a joy. Miss Drabble displays good sense, good judgment and good humour, and she writes with a vigour and a lack of affectation which make the novel a pleasure to read. The story is about Louise, who uses her spectacular beauty to make a marriage which is materially brilliant and emotionally disastrous; Louise's beauty and her husband's psychological eccentricity are sympathetically and convincingly created, and Sarah, the younger sister who tells the story and who makes the novel, is altogether enchanting. This is not a great novel, nor meant to be one; the author knows her limits and keeps within them with a rare assurance. But one day she will write a very funny book; the compassionate comedy she has produced in this one is meanwhile to be warmly recommended.

"Other New Novels: 'A Summer Bird-Cage'," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd...