The second of the Mapp and Lucia books, which introduces us to Miss Mapp—the two formidable ladies haven’t met yet—in the village of Tilling (based on real-life Rye), where we also meet other residents, Diva Plaistow, ‘quaint’ Irene, the artist, Major Benjy and Captain Puffin, Mrs Poppet and Isabel, and Mr Wyse among others. Unlike Lucia in her village of Riseholme, Miss Mapp is not ‘queen’ of Tilling, but very much a part of its society, with shopping, games of bridge and tea parties, and some

I'm in the mood for fun, light reads, so decided to reread Benson's Lucia and Mapp books this year. I read Queen Lucia not long ago and was instantly immersed in the social schemes and vicious gossip of Riseholme; but divine Lucia, charming Georgie and the delightful opera singer Olga Bracely are one thing, Miss Mapp is another! She is truly one of the most scheming, hypocritical, suspicious and angry characters I've ever read, ruling Tilling with as iron a fist as Lucia rules Riseholme, but wit...

Miss Elizabeth Mapp -- malicious, snooping, miserly and snobbish -- serves as the social center of Tilling, a thinly veiled portrait of the English town of Rye, Sussex, in the 1920s. Determined to maintain her position and to one-up her neighbors, Godiva Plaistow and Susan Poppit, MBE, Miss Mapp resents others' success and devotes hours to planning how to elevate herself. Aside from social-climbing, bridge parties and gardening, Miss Mapp's only other concern is the long-shot scheme of entrappin...

Delicious! Miss Mapp is her own worst friend.

When you get right down to it, Miss Mapp is an unpleasant character with her fake enthusiasm and constant battles for the upper hand in her social circle in the English town of Tilling. But, her daily battles and occasional triumphs are quite amusing, informed by the author’s sharp eye for everyday hypocrisies and small social contretemps. Nadia May’s narration of the audiobook enhances the comedy. Reread. 4.5 stars

This is the second in the Mapp and Lucia series (or third if one goes by a popular re-ordering). While the first book concerned the sprightly Lucia in the town of Riseholme, this one concerns the conniving Miss Mapp in the (I suppose nearby) town of Tilling. There is a passing reference made to Riseholme but otherwise this is a completely separate book only really connected through the later volumes where Lucia and Mapp meet. However both of the first two books are identical in their biting sati...

I've sat around and had discussions with friends about the genius behind the show Seinfeld: how can "a show about nothing" have run for so many seasons, and still manage to maintain its freshness and hilarity to this day? That's exactly what I asked myself after I finished reading Miss Mapp. This is the third book in a series of six books (Make Way for Lucia) written by E.F. Benson spanning the early 1920s and ending in the late 1930s. A few times when I was asked to describe what I was reading

This is Mean Girls all over again, set in an English country village in the 1920s. And the meanest girl of all is a middle-aged woman who is so devious that she embodies the term gaslighting. She spies, schemes, lies and denies so skilfully that lesser intellects are left hurt and bewildered. The characters are memorable, especially Miss Mapp herself, and the writing is both clever and caustic. I'm subtracting one star only because the plot lacks any real drama, but relies on the constant twists...

Darlings, you simply must join us for...A BATTLE ROYALE AT TILLING VILLAGE!We have a scintillating lineup of local dignitaries pitted one against the other, prepared for fierce battle through tea time and perhaps up until a light supper, served buffet style on the sideboard. The stakes are high: losers risk a decided loss of self-esteem, diminished social cachet, quickly extinguished laughter from clusters of villagers idling in front of the market, and a range of droll expressions made at their...

My introduction to the world of E.F. Benson's Mapp & Lucia novels was via the BBC TV adaptation broadcast in the UK in late December 2014. E.F. Benson's Mapp & Lucia novels were also recommended to me on GoodReads. This is the second book in the Mapp and Lucia series, and the second one I have read. 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 US as Trouble for Lucia (1939))There are...

Ever since Summer-time had been inaugurated a few years before, it had been one of the chronic dissensions of Tilling. Miss Mapp, Diva and the Padre flatly refused to recognize it, except when they were going by train or tram, when principle must necessarily go to the wall, or they would never have succeeded in getting anywhere, while Miss Mapp, with the halo of martyrdom round her head, had once arrived at a Summer-time party an hour late, in order to bear witness to the truth, and, in conseque...

I love reading about Miss Mapp! Adding to the fun is that in January I was very fortunate to get to visit the lovely village of Rye with my dear friend/fellow anglophile and stroll the streets where these books are set. It is not a must, of course, but the fact that I know exactly where Miss Mapp spied on the neighbors from her garden, watched the cars rounding the bend in front of the church, and her view down the cobblestone streets, adds to my extreme enjoyment & delight.I look forward to Mis...

Book Two of the series, in which the Reader is introduced to Miss Mapp, social dominatrix of the seaside town of Tilling and future arch-rival of the matchless Lucia. Here, she gets a novel all to herself and threatens to chew it to bits with her great, gleaming, hypocritical teeth. Wickedly funny.

This is my second time reading this but this time I rounded it up because I liked it better by not having read it soon after reading Queen Lucia. This time I appreciated more of the writing Benson does and especially the rivalry between Mapp and Diva; it I hadn't read it on kindle due to the quarantine, I'd have marked some brilliant quotes. As well as Benson writes, I can't say that I love this book to the point of five stars. I want to finally read Mapp and Lucia (I've read the first three in

3.5* rounded up for this audiobook edition.It has been decades since I read the Mapp & Lucia series and I had forgotten much this entry (2nd in publication order but 3rd in the omnibus). I found Miss Mapp meaner than I remembered but the book funnier (so often the way in satires that the nastier characters are the source of most of the humor).Nadia May does a marvellous narration so I am glad to have listened to this rather than read my Kindle edition.

Another reread that I know already is five stars!Paragraphs like this one are why I adore E.F. Benson:"Peace on earth and mercy mild," sang Miss Mapp, holding her head back with her uvula clearly visible. She sat in her usual seat close below the pulpit, and the sun streaming in through a stained glass window opposite made her face of all colours, like Joseph's coat. Not knowing how it looked from outside, she pictured to herself a sort of celestial radiance coming from within, though Diva, sitt...

I don’t write reviews. My dear Miss Mapp, you are the living end! As opposed to Lucia’s desire to be seen as the epitome of culture and the arts, Elizabeth Mapp just wants to be seen. She hasn’t much trouble in that, considering her scheming, spying, careful entrances and large, loud figure. She tries to appear uninterested and aloof, with enjoyable results. Her world revolves around the happenings of the small town of Tilling and the few residents there considered important enough to care about...

14 January 2008: I finished the book last night, finally! I've been so busy it was hard to devote any consistent time to the novel, though I did enjoy it immensley. I wavered between awarding it four or five stars, because some aspects were truly outstanding and others were only slightly lacking--and it may just have been because I didn't read it daily, but it was a bit hard to keep the characters (except Miss Mapp) straight in the beginning, and the first 1/3 or so of the book were more unrelat...

In the third of his six "Mapp and Lucia" novels, Benson shifts the scene from the village of Riseholme to that of Tilling. Here the social queen is not the redoubtable Lucia Lucas of the first two books but rather one Elizabeth Mapp, who rules with rather a heavier and more judgemental hand. Mapp is one of the great unlikeable-but-fascinating characters in all of comic literature. She is nosey, pretentious, mean spirited, and small minded. Yet she's as fascinating as a cobra. Benson, of course,

So cute!