Mapp & Lucia by EF Benson

Inspired by an upcoming trip to Rye, the setting for Tilling, I launched into Mapp & Lucia with gusto. And it is wonderful. In this book Lucia and Miss Mapp come head to head. Pepino has died and Lucia decides to leave Riseholme and move to Tilling, trailed by the devoted Georgie. There begins the battle for social supremacy in the village, all told with the waspish wit and clever writing that marks EF Benson’s work. I find myself chuckling a lot, sometimes even bursting into loud laughter, when reading these Lucia books. The smallness of village life, the pettiness of the characters, their anxieties and fears and their snobbery all tell, but they are above all endearing. You smile indulgently and forgive them every time. And of course, their behaviour is instantly recognizable in people you know today. Apparently Benson did not regard the Lucia and Mapp series as important works, but wrote many more serious biographies and the like, as well as some ghost stories that have a good reputation. But it is this series that is the most widely read and has given him his place in literary history.