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Miss Mapp

E. F. Benson

E. F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia series, consists of six novels and three short stories. The novels are: Queen Lucia, Lucia in London, Miss Mapp (including the short story The Male Impersonator), Mapp and Lucia, Lucia's Progress (published as The Worshipful Lucia in the U.S.) and Trouble for Lucia.

The novels feature humorous incidents in the lives of (mainly) upper-middle-class British people in the 1920s and 1930s, vying for social prestige and "one-upmanship" in an atmosphere of extreme cultural snobbery. Most of these works are set in the fictional village of "Tilling", which is based on the village of Rye, Sussex, England. "Mallards", the house with the garden room inhabited by Miss Mapp, and later by Lucia, is based on Lamb House, Benson's own home in Rye. Earlier, the house was the Sussex home of writer Henry James. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Karen Merline.)