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Mapp and Lucia

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About this listen

Mapp and Lucia is the centrepiece of E. F. Benson's series of Lucia novels - bringing together for the first time the eponymous middle-aged doyennes of polite 1930s society Miss Elizabeth Mapp and Emmeline Luca (Lucia to her friends).

Lucia, recently widowed, is the newcomer to the village of Tilling and eager to wrest the reins of social supremacy from the incumbant Miss Mapp and install herself as its benevolent dictator. In their polite acts of sabotage and ruthless jockeying for the position of cultural arbiter Mapp and Lucia tear up the conventions of drawing-room bridge evenings as their deadly weapons.

Things finally come to a head with Miss Mapp's audacious attempt to steal her rival's celebrated Lobster a la Riseholme. E.F. Benson's charming satrical bent turns the pretensions and snobberies of English village life into a vicious comedy.

©1931 E. F. Benson (P)2010 Hachette Digital Classics Literature & Fiction Comedy Funny Witty Village
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A well told story of competition between the two and life of the gentile in the 1930s.

Mapp & Lucia

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a very funny book and an excellent narrator, only slight negative is that it is very much abridged.

great fun

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Sadly this is an abridged version of the book, but still hugely enjoyable when read by the brilliant Miriam Margolyes!

Enjoyable.

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I am very fond of E.F. Benson's Mapp and/or Lucia books, and I think this one is the best. It is also easy to pick up on who everyone is, even though this is fourth series. The story itself is fun but simple and quite predictable, but that isn't the point of it - it's the accurately observed absurdities of characters, alliances and power struggles, and a sprinkling of comic happenings, that makes it a treat to read.

This audiobook is beautifully read, with easily distinguished character voices and great pacing - no surprise from Miriam Margoyles.

A very English comedy of cut-throat social tangles in the 1920s

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Would you listen to Mapp and Lucia again? Why?

E.F Benson's books are favourites. I will definitely listen to this again.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Mapp and Lucia?

Shopping baskets on the Green; Susan's Royce and OBE; scheming by the two social lionesses of am English village, fighting for preeminence..

Have you listened to any of Miriam Margolyes’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Miriam Margolyes is a joy. I will listen to anything she reads. Her reading of this and of Dickens and Thackeray are pitch perfect. She lets the humour come from the characters and situation, I have downloaded all the EF Benson Mapp and Lucia books ready by MM>.

Any additional comments?

Well worth a listen, and abridgement is fine. My only question is why abridge it at all? It is all worth listening to.

Mannered and funny, wonderfully read

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