Mapp and Lucia

By EF Benson

Soon to be revived in a new BBC series, Mapp and Lucia is a poisonous witty, comic tale of two upper-class women battling for social supremacy in the most underhand ways possible. Meet Mapp and Lucia - two of the most unpleasant, disgraceful women you're ever likely to encounter, in E.F. Bensons 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 home town of Riseholme offers no longer challenges and decides to holiday 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 supermacy. 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hesperus Press Ltd.
• Release date: Sep 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780944104

Reviews for Mapp and Lucia

[therebelprince · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dare I say to new readers not to commence with this, the eponymous and most famous novel of the series? Mapp and Lucia is still an amusing frolic, but I think it isn't quite as funny as the previous three, and additionally it rather assumes the reader's knowledge of the worlds of both Mapp and Lucia, who meet in this novel but have had full lives of their own in the previous ones. (Mostly in terms of character touches; the Padre, Daisy Quantock, and all of the minor characters are hilarious here if you know them already.)

Not to say you won't enjoy this, but commence with Queen Lucia or Miss Mapp and move through the series; it will be a much more satisfying experience.

[rosalita_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't understand why I love the residents of Riseholme and Tilling so much. They really are the most vapid, conniving, hidebound, silly snobs you could ever imagine, and Lucia and Miss Mapp are the worst of the bunch. And yet, when they do occasionally get their comeuppance, I can't help but feel a pang. And I'm always eager to read more.

[bowerbirds4library · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Simply wonderful! Like the residents of Tilling I longed to know what was going to happen next with the duelling duo.

[lauralkeet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When I began reading the Mapp and Lucia series, which focuses first on Lucia, friends said "just wait until she meets Miss Mapp!" And oh boy, were they right about that. In this fourth installment, the social queen bees of their respective towns create quite a storm. On a visit to Tilling, Elizabeth Mapp's domain, Lucia finds a house available to let for the summer, and decides a change of scenery would do her good. She convinces her good friend Georgie to rent another house in town, and they prepare to vacate Riseholme and descend on Tilling. It happens that Lucia has rented Mapp's house, and it's all part of an elaborate annual ritual in which the residents of Tilling rent their dwellings to one another (aside: the ease with which these people pack up all their worldly goods is rather astounding...). So the stage is set for a social rivalry of epic proportions, and considerable amusement can be derived from Mapp and Lucia repeatedly attempting to one-up the other, with variable results. The climax results in a completely absurd caper, which some might call "jumping the shark," but by this time any reader worth their salt would have suspended disbelief. Just "take two hen lobsters" ... and hang on for the ride.

[michael5rimmer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Delightful; amusing; gentle comedy of manners: while accurate descriptors of Mapp and Lucia, these words also make it sound twee and, perhaps, dated, which is far from the truth. Gossipy, waspish and, at times, malignant are also accurate, and go more to the heart of the humour.

Elizabeth Mapp hates Emmeline "Lucia" Lucas with a passion; Lucia despises and pities Mapp in equal measure. Each scheming and plotting to be the centre of their social circle, their machinations against each other must always be concealed (barely and, usually, ineffectually) by the appropriate observances of the middle and upper-middle class conventions of a "between-the-wars" England at its most parochial.

The other villagers are by turns allies, pawns and antagonists in the war between Mapp and Lucia. Loyalties swing from one side to the other as first one, then the other appears to have the upper hand. However, Mapp's malevolence usually causes her to overplay her hand and, just when she seems about to trump her opponent, she makes some awful gaff that Lucia turns to her advantage.

There is a well-observed cast of satellite characters, notably Lucia's best friend and companion, the effeminate and endearing Georgie Pilling, the only person of steadfast and unwavering loyalty amongst the two main combatants' followers.

I absolutely loved this book and cannot recommend it too highly.

[stewartry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I always liked the Britcom "Keeping Up Appearances". But it is distracting to wonder so often why no one has ever murdered Hyacinth Bucket ("It's boo-KAY!"). She's amusing, but mostly because she is surrounded by family and … friends who recognize the fact that she's unchangeably outrageous, and they're stuck with her. (Unless they kill her, and since it's a sitcom they never do.) These other characters, the neighbors and her sisters and their families, and of course her poor bedeviled husband Richard, are all what makes the show fun. If it was pure undiluted Hyacinth it would be miserable. Which brings me to Mapp and Lucia. I've been hearing about this series for years. I love a lot of British novels and tv, and I have been seeing "if you love (such and such name here) you'll love Lucia!" for ages. I've tried before, and never made it very far; I got the series from Netflix and was ready to fling the dvd against the wall after one episode; I never watched any more, and tend to doubt I ever will. But … in a couple of reviews of One for the Books, people mention how Joe Queenan designated a year in which he closed his eyes and pulled each next read off a shelf. That's how I started this one. I was passing one of my bookcases where I had whammed in a bunch of paperbacks so that only the bottoms faced out, and on a whim pulled one out at random. And sighed when it turned out to be this. It's the fourth in the series; I didn't care. I figured this would be when I eliminated these books from my library forever. And it certainly looked that way for quite a while. In my status updates I call the characters "vile" and "horrid" – and I stand by it, and much more. They're unrelievedly awful. I can only infer that Hyacinth was heavily based on Emmeline Lucas, AKA Lucia, but – as I started to say above – in this book, instead of poor bedraggled Richard and lovely-if-hounded neighbors Liz and Emmet, and the sister that has "swimming pool, sauna, and room for a pony" and those who very definitely do not, all of whom are lovable characters – and, more importantly, characters who realize how absurd Hyacinth is, but just can't figure out how to detach themselves. Mapp and Lucia has Queen Hyacinth and her sycophants, all of whom would apparently be Hyacinth if they could, and then, dear God, another Hyacinth and her sycophants. I was appalled. And then I became morbidly, reluctantly curious. And then I began to enjoy the clash of titans as Elizabeth Mapp and Emmeline Lucas (Liblib and Lulu) went after each other. But I felt wrong to be enjoying it. Aha – it's just come to me. I felt like I was watching one of those reality shows which, in reality, given a choice between death and being forced to watch, I would seriously consider death. (That's a terrible sentence, sorry.) It was all very well written, and sharply intelligent (the writing, not the characters), and there was an occasional comeuppance that made me whistle softly – but upon finishing it I felt a little dirty, as if I'd just watched an episode of some show about something named Snooki. While I am forced to admire the writing, I still wanted to throw the book against a wall many times. I'm a little surprised I didn't sometime during the chapter in which Lucia tours Mallards for the first time. The constant use of one condescending word was like visual fingernails on a blackboard, as I can only suppose it was meant to be: "little round bustling woman"; "My little plot"; "My little Eden"; "a wee little plot"; "my little secret garden" or "little gardino segreto" (twice); "my little nook"; "a little paved walk" ... etc. I may never use the word "little" again. And I bow to Benson's skill in seeing to it that Lucia and her Georgino were as nauseous as possible with their pseudo-Italian (though when I came to "So I'm bound to meet the Faraglione, and she'll see in a minute I can't talk Italian" it made all that almost worthwhile) and, God help me, their baby-talk … I feel a bit ill when someone talks baby talk to a baby. Two supposed adults using it on each other made me long for either a baseball bat for said characters or a shredder for the book. At about the three-quarter mark, the thought occurred to me that in any other sort of book Mapp and Lucia would probably find themselves together alone in some life-threatening situation in which they had to depend on each other, and come out of it bosom friends. I was astonished when the first part of that actually came to pass (in the most ridiculous manner possible); I was not astonished when the second part of that very decidedly did not. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm a simple soul. I like to be able to like at least someone in a book's cast of characters. Barring that (and I didn't like anyone here – no, not even Georgie, though he came closest), I like to at least know that the author liked his characters. It's pretty clear that E.F. Benson may have enjoyed his characters in so far as he could use them to skewer the idle snobbish rich – but my impression is that the creatures that people his book are simply vessels for his venom, and the book itself is merely the (to mix metaphors with wild abandon) stage on which his commentary is played out. I guess, unpopular as it is, I like "nice". So sue me. I enjoyed it much more than I expected to – which isn't a huge amount, but since I didn't want to like it even a little is a lot – and it did wring a few chuckles out of me. But I didn't find it nearly as funny as I take it I was supposed to; it's hailed hither and yon as a masterpiece of comedy. I was starting to worry about my sense of humor for a while there. In the end it was a pleasant surprise – but only insofar as I expected to not finish it and in fact to throw it against the nearest wall hard enough for pages to fly. I do not, however, expect to continue with the series.

[lisamorr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mapp and Lucia, two bourgeois ladies living separately as the leading ladies of their respective towns, come together when Lucia decides to spend a couple of months in idyllic Tilling, renting Mapp's house. Mapp is of a mind to take Lucia under her wing and share her with the Tilling community, which is when the fireworks begin. The rest of the book is about the battles between these two and is very entertaining to watch.I'll give it 4 stars - the battling did get a little 'tarsome' at some point, but I did enjoy it!

[julesjones_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Abridged audiobook of the novel, read by Miriam Margoyles on 3 CDs. My first encounter with Benson's Mapp and Lucia characters, but assuredly not my last. Hysterically funny comedy of manners following the battle of wits and garden parties between two snobs, each intent on ruling local society in a small seaside town in the early 1930s. Margoyles does a superb job of reading, bringing the various characters to vivid life.

[overthemoon_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Peppino dies and Lucia moves to Tilling permanently, taking Georgie with her (he lives in a separate house), entering into warfare with Elizabeth Mapp. Mapp's attempt to steal Lucia's recipe for lobster à la Riseholme has dire consequences.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As the title implies, this is the book that brings together the characters of Miss Mapp with those of Queen Lucia and Lucia in London and retrospectively makes them into a series. Lucia and Georgie decide to rent houses in Tilling for the summer, so of course Lucia has to establish herself as an independent power in Tilling society, something that Miss Mapp is determined to resist. Lucia is usually able to outmanoeuvre Mapp, but there are thrilling skirmishes along the way over the Art Club show, the Summer Fête, Miss Mapp's garden produce, and innumerable invitations to lunch, tea, bridge or dinner, all of which have endless (and hilarious) strategic ramifications. Benson is very much back on form after the slight aberration of Lucia in London, and handles all these complications with tremendous seriousness and gusto.

[miketroll · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Delightful comedy of polite society in rural England in the late 1920s. Mapp & Lucia is the most celebrated of Benson’s 6 novels featuring his eponymous heroines - not surprising, as it is the first time he brings these Valkyries (Stephen Pile’s word) together in a head-to-head clash. It is hard to imagine today a society devoting so much energy to social points scoring, but it assuredly was. Benson makes it all come alive again. This is a comic classic.