Mapp & Lucia (Prion Humour Classics) - Hardcover

Benson, E.F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1853753904 ISBN 13: 9781853753909

Publisher: Prion, 2001

Synopsis

Mrs. Emmeline Lucas 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 Mapp's audacious attempt to steal her rival's 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.

About this title

About the Author:

Edward Francis Benson was born in 1867 and educated at King's College, Cambridge. Mayor of Rye from 1934 to 1937, Benson was awarded the O.B.E. and made an Honorary Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. E. F. Benson died in 1940.

Review:

"No matter how appalling, malicious and pretentious the behaviour of Lucia, the reader is always lured into a sense of affectionate complicity with this comic monster" * Daily Telegraph * "Bitchily observant novel of small-town life" * Independent * "Sparkles with wicked wit...provides some pointed digs at social one- upmanship and the genteelly disguised venality of the upper classes. But, on another level, it can be hugely enjoyed as class-war subversion" * Sunday Times * "The pleasure of Mapp and Lucia is summed up, surely, in Alice Roosevelt's bon mot. "If you have nothing good to say about anybody, come and sit right by me."" -- Philip Hensher "Oh the joy of seeing Lucia again! These magic books are as fresh as paint. The characters are real and therefore timeless" -- Nancy Mitford * The Times *

About this edition

• Publisher: Prion
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1853753904
• ISBN 13: 9781853753909
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 315