Mapp & Lucia - Softcover

Benson, E.F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843915464 ISBN 13: 9781843915461

Publisher: Hesperus Classics, 2015

Synopsis

Meet Mapp and Lucia—two of the most unpleasant, disgraceful women you're ever likely to encounter, in E.F. Benson's carefully observed tale of 1930s village life and social ranking

Emmeline Lucas (known as Lucia to her friends) is emerging from mourning following the death of her husband. Pretentious, snobbish, and down-right devious, she feels her hometown of Riseholme offers no challenges and decides to vacation in the town of Tilling. She rents "Mallards" from Miss Mapp. The two women clash immediately. Miss Mapp is used to being top of the social ranking in Tilling, and there is no way she is going to let a vulgar outsider claim her position. So begins a battle of one-upmanship, peppered with queenly airs, ghastly tea parties, and unnerving bridge evenings as the two combatants attempt to out-do each other to win social supremacy. The pompous Lucia and malignant Mapp are characters you will love to hate, wonderfully penned by E.F. Benson. Darkly comic and witty, it is soon to be a new BBC series written by Steve Pemberton.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Mrs. Emmeline Lucas (Lucia to her friends) is the recently-widowed newcomer to the village of Tilling, eager to wrest the reins of social supremacy from the incumbent Miss Elizabeth Mapp and to install herself as its benevolent dictator. In their polite acts of sabotage, as they ruthlessly jockey for the position of cultural arbiter, Mapp and Lucia tear up the conventions of drawing-room diplomacy and enter a protracted conflict using fêtes, garden parties, musical soirées, and bridge evenings as their deadly weapons. Things finally come to a head with Miss Mapp¹s audacious attempt to steal her rival¹s celebrated recipe for Lobster à la Riseholme. With a charming satirical bent, E.F. Benson turns the pretensions and snobberies of English village life into a deliciously wicked comedy. E.F. Benson (1867­1940) was the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury and a member of a distinguished and eccentric family. He wrote more than 100 books but is best remembered for his Lucia novels, written between 1920 and 1939.

About the Author:

E.F. Benson was an English novelist, biographer, archaeologist, and short-story writer, who wrote almost 100 books in his lifetime. Mapp & Lucia is the third book in the Mapp and Lucia series.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hesperus Classics
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1843915464
• ISBN 13: 9781843915461
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 420