Lucia's Progress

By E. F. Benson

The fifth volume of E.F. Benson’s wildly satirical take on the Edwardian English upper class. The books were recently adapted by the BBC into a mini-series starring Sherlock’s Mark Gatiss.
 
Published in America as The Worshipful Lucia. Continuing to live in the village of Tilling, the novel chronicles her continued clashes with Miss Mapp as the two vie for control over the local social scene.
 
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781551998329

E. F. Benson

Edward Frederic Benson (1867–1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer. Benson was the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury and member of a distinguished and eccentric family. After attending Marlborough and King’s College, Cambridge, where he studied classics and archaeology, he worked at the British School of Archaeology in Athens. A great humorist, he achieved success at an early age with his first novel, Dodo(1893). Benson was a prolific author, writing over one hundred books including serious novels, ghost stories, plays, and biographies. But he is best remembered for his Lucia and Mapp comedies written between 1920 and 1939 and other comic novels such as Paying Guests and Mrs Ames. Benson served as mayor of Rye, the Sussex town that provided the model for his fictional Tilling, from 1934 to 1937.  

Reviews for Lucia's Progress

[overthemoon_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mapp and Major Benjy marry; Lucia starts speculating and makes a lot of money, whereas Mapp follows suit but does not have the same London advisor as Lucia so ends up accepting Lucia's offer to swap houses; once in Mallards Lucia starts excavating; she becomes a benefactress, buying a new church organ, levelling the cricket pitch and football ground, planting flowering almonds, reaping as benefits a rise in status, becoming president of the cricket and football clubs; when it is eventually suggested that she stand for mayor she decides she needs a prince escort and somehow she and Georgie propose to each other and come to a very satisfactory agreement that pleases even Grosvenor, Cadman and Foljambe.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The fifth book in the Mapp / Lucia series, published in 1935. Lucia is now permanently established in Tilling, and launches herself with gusto into everything from high finance and local politics to archaeology and the cricket club. Miss Mapp isn't going to let her take over Tilling society without a fight, but Lucia is usually more than a match for her. Like Mapp and Lucia, this is Benson on top form, intricately plotted and full of hilariously telling social detail.

[herschelian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Satirical, sparkling, malicious. 5th book in series