Desirable Residences and Other Stories - Hardcover

Benson, E. F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0192123041 ISBN 13: 9780192123046

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1991

Synopsis

For some years after his death in 1940, E.F. Benson was a forgotten man of English letters, remembered only by a few enthusiasts of his supernatural fiction. But over the last decade this has all changed, as successful TV adaptations of his comic masterpieces, the "Mapp and Lucia" stories, have transformed his reputation and led to the reissue of his best comic novels. Now, Jack Adrian, an authority on twentieth-century popular fiction, has brought together twenty-six of Benson's delightful short stories, some of which are newly discovered, and most of which have never been published in book form.
In Desirable Residences we find all of Benson's archetypical characters--absurd, gossipy socialites, appalling meddlers, and hapless males--sketched with a fine satirical wit, and juxtaposed in hilarious short stories. Benson's typical tale involves the humorous misadventures of his sorry, but lovable crew of main characters. One story relates the catastrophe which ensues when a pair of misogynistic bachelors mistakenly think they have solved their domestic problems by investing in the latest household appliances ("electricity," they hoped, would "take the place of a staff of greedy, incompetent females"). Adrian includes several of Benson's society stories (such as "The Drawing Room Bureau," in which a feud develops between two fashionable women over who will be able to divulge the most classified information from their "sources" at the War Office), and four depicting "The Diversions of Amy Bondham," a meddlesome social climber who is revived on her death bed when her husband reads to her the lineage of the Duke she has just visited. A typically pointed Benson passage has Amy complaining of the dreary social scene: "There had been so many pianists, so many singers, so many operations, and though a play by West African cannibals was a novelty, there would be risks in asking these artists to her house....She would never forgive herself if any of her guests were killed or eaten." Benson's taste for the bizarre is well represented, and the collection includes three of his ghost stories (which he like to call "spook stories"). Throughout, Benson creates memorable, often absurd characters--from the unfortunate Miss Mapp (featured in the title story) to the priceless Dodo to humorous hypochondriacs like Dicky Pepys and Bertram Potter.
Like his dozens of novels, these stories show Benson to be a master of many genres--from the society spoof to the chilling supernatural tale. These never-before-collected stories will only increase the burgeoning popularity of this once forgotten author.

About this title

About the Author:

About the Author:
E.F. Benson was an extremely prolific and popular novelist, whose works include Dodo and Queen Lucia, and various volumes of reminiscence.
About the Editor:
Jack Adrian is the author of several thrillers, and war and science fiction novels. He is an authority on 20th-century popular and genre fiction, and has compiled a number of anthologies and single-author collections.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Twenty-eight stories and sketches (1896-1935) by the acid-tongued author of the peerless Lucia novels. Adrian aptly notes that Benson's ``sharpest stings were dabbed into the fabric of a story rather than sprung all at once at the end,'' and the best of these pieces--chronicles of society hostess Amy Bondham and her rivals and kindred spirits (including the title story, an exploit of Lucia's archrival Miss Elizabeth Mapp) duelling for the most deliciously trivial social advantages--display a continuous stream of waspish invention. The genuine malice underlying these battles comes out more directly in four ``Crank Stories'' and four ``Cruel Stories'' that destroy their subjects with pitiless humor. Benson's early tales about the social and marital triumphs of Dodo, along with three fantasies collected as ``Odd Stories,'' are less successful, presumably because his whimsical imagination required the more severe discipline of his later social comedies--or of his ghost stories, especially ``Sea Mist,'' the concluding story here, and one whose power, like that of the Lucia stories, depends less on surprise than on seeing one's nastiest wishes so elegantly fulfilled. An uneven collection, then--but the half-dozen best of these will delight Lucia-lovers and other Tillingites. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0192123041
• ISBN 13: 9780192123046
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304
• Editor: Adrian Jack