Edward Frederic Benson

Miss Mapp. by Edward Frederic Benson

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 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. 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 lived in by Henry James and had a garden room overlooking the street (unfortunately a German bomb destroyed the Garden Room in World War II. The rest of the house is now a National Trust property.)