A Summer Bird-Cage is the 1963 debut novel by Margaret Drabble published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

At the beginning of the story Sarah (who has recently graduated from Oxford University) has returned from Paris in order to be a bridesmaid at the wedding of Louise to the wealthy novelist Stephen Halifax.

She is in a state of limbo, waiting for the man that she is in love with (Francis, a historian) to return from Harvard.

[4] To complicate the picture, it becomes clear to Sarah during the course of the novel that Louise is having an affair with actor John Connell.

The friction between the sisters leads, eventually, to Sarah confronting Louise about the state of her life and attitudes to the world and other people.