This short novel is rather sweet and charming, as well as utterly and completely preposterous. It concerns Ada Harris, an English charwoman of a certain age and a broad Cockney accent, who falls suddenly in love with French fashion, specifically a Dior dress of one of her employers. She then makes it her mission to obtain a couture dress from Paris, and while accomplishing this feat, she inadvertently transforms the lives of many around her through her kind heart, honesty, hard work, and common sense. Strangely enough, the novel is not unbearably treacly (although it is more than a bit dated), and the story ends on a surprisingly thoughtful and bittersweet note.

Light as a feather, or maybe a profiterole, Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris is a fairy tale about finding beauty. And that’s its appeal: we all need beauty, something to make our day-to-day existence shine, even if the quest is slightly mad. As for Mrs. 'Arris, the woman with a dream–her story is summed up toward the end: “For it had not been a dress she had bought so much as an adventure and an experience that would last her to the end of her days. She would never again feel lonely or unwanted. She had ventured into a foreign country and a foreign people she had been taught to suspect and despise. She had found them to be warm and human, men and women to whom human love and understanding was a mainspring of life.”

If a little escapism may help to ease your day-to-day existence, give Mrs. 'Arris a try.

NOVEL: Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris (also known as Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris)

AUTHOR: Paul Gallico

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 1958

IMAGE: book cover, Bloomsbury Publishing