Lucia in London & Mapp and Lucia: The Mapp & Lucia Novels

Description

E. F. Benson's beloved Mapp and Lucia novels are sparkling, classic comedies of manners set against the petty snobberies and competitive maneuverings of English village society in the 1920s and 1930s. The third and fourth novels in the series, Lucia in London (1927) and Mapp and Lucia (1931) continue the adventures of Benson's famously irrepressible characters, and bring them into hilarious conflict. Both Mrs. Lucia Lucas and Miss Elizabeth Mapp are accustomed to complete social supremacy, and when one intrudes on the other's territory, war ensues. Lucia sees herself as a benevolent-if ruthless-dictator, while Miss Mapp is driven by an insatiable desire for vengeance against the presumptuous interloper. Their skirmishes-played out on a battlefield composed of dinner parties, council meetings, and art exhibits-enliven the plots of Benson's maliciously witty comedies.

E. F. BENSON was born in 1867 at Wellington College in Berkshire, England, where his father (who later became Archbishop of Canterbury) was the headmaster. Benson studied archaeology at Kings College, Cambridge and at the British School of Archaeology in Athens, where he came to know Lord Alfred Douglas and Oscar Wilde. After visiting Henry James in the village of Rye, Benson eventually settled there until his death in 1940; Rye was the model for Tilling, the setting of his six popular Mapp and Lucia novels. Benson published more than one hundred books on various subjects, but remains best known for Mapp and Lucia.

"Benson's Lucia novels . . . are camp, sly, poisonous, piquant, stinging, clever, and as delightful as a glass of sweet sherry taken on a sun-dappled lawn." -The Telegraph (UK) "Entirely delightful. . . . Superbly ridiculous. . . . Benson constructs a comedy that is as exquisite, in its way, as anything in English humorous literature." -Auberon Waugh, The New York Times "These magic books . . . are as fresh as paint. The characters are real and therefore timeless." -Nancy Mitford, The Times (London) "Benson's cult novels are wicked, funny masterpieces-and thoroughly addictive. . . . Lucia, Georgie and Mapp are three of the very greatest characters in English fiction, and with them you can never go wrong." -Edward Gorey, Vogue