Mapp and Lucia
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Mapp and Lucia is a collective name for a series of novels by E. F. Benson, and also the name for two British television adaptations based on those novels.
The novels
The novels feature humorous incidents in the lives of (mainly) upper-middle-class British characters in the 1920s and 1930s, many of whom do not work for a living, who vie for social prestige and one-upmanship in an atmosphere of extreme cultural snobbery. Several of them are set in the small seaside town of Tilling, closely based on Rye, East Sussex, where Benson lived for a number of years and (like Lucia) served as mayor. Lucia previously lived at Riseholme, based on Broadway, Worcestershire, from where she brought to Tilling her celebrated recipe for Lobster à la Riseholme.
"Mallards", the home of Miss Mapp—and subsequently Lucia—was based on Lamb House in Rye. The house had previously been the residence of Henry James and had a garden room overlooking the street.
The novels, in chronological order, are:
- Queen Lucia (1920)
- Miss Mapp (1922)
- Lucia in London (1927)
- Mapp and Lucia (1931)
- Lucia's Progress (1935) (published in the U.S. as The Worshipful Lucia)
- Trouble for Lucia (1939)
The first three books concern only the protagonist named in the title; the last three feature both Mapp and Lucia.
In 1977 Thomas Y. Crowell Company reprinted all six novels in a compendium called Make Way for Lucia. The order of Miss Mapp and Lucia in London was switched in the compendium, and a Miss Mapp short story called "The Male Impersonator" was included between Miss Mapp and Mapp and Lucia.
"Desirable Residences", one further short story featuring Miss Mapp, and previously having seen only one magazine printing in Benson's own time, was discovered by Jack Adrian in the 1990s and included in his collection of Benson stories, Desirable Residences.
