This comedy of manners was the perfect offset for a tough day (or days) of the Covid-19 craziness! If the worst news I got in any given day was when the village learned I wasn't really fluent in Italian or that one of my nosy neighbors wondered why my lights were on late into the evening I think I could survive :-)I preferred Ms Mapp to Lucia, but it's the first of these books that I've read so I am willing to change my mind.I'd highly recommend these for anyone who wants to laugh at the British...

I've read and re-read the Mapp and Lucia books for 40 years. They're my 'go-to' books for escape, relaxation and humour. My children grew up seeing these books always on my bedside table - and they're still there. They were so used to seeing me read them that when I met my daughter in Rye at the beginning of a 6 week trip through Europe, she arranged with the local Benson expert to give us a walking tour of 'Mapp and Lucia's Tilling' - even though it was off season and we were the only ones on t...

Book 3: Lucia in London ✅Honestly loved all three of these stories! Lucia’s antics in London were so funny and it was just delicious.

(Partial review: book 1 - Queen Lucia - only)The well-to-do inhabitants of the quaint English village of Riseholme live a comfortable life of social engagements and cultured pastimes. The self-styled “Lucia” sees herself as superior to all others in terms of refinement and social importance, but she’s not the only one with pretensions and schemes. A series of fads test the allegiances of her friends, the effete and somewhat camp bachelor Georgie, and the gullible Mrs Quantock.At its best, Queen

This is an omnibus edition of which I read the first story, Queen Lucia, only. Some very clever moments. But the story is difficult to relate to; don't think I was in the right mood. I'll read the other two stories at some stage.

An almost unbearable pleasure.

I keep this book by my bed always. I've read it multiple times, and I feel like I know the characters as well as I know my neighbors. This volume contains Books 1-3 of the "Lucia" Stories. How to describe? One of the FUNNIEST books I've ever read, certainly. It relates the tales of Lucia, a self-important, pretentious middle-aged poseur who strives to be the queen bee of her little village, Riseholme. She insists on speaking butchered Italian (but knows only about 15 words -- when the Italian op...

Exceptionally funny and ridiculous characters. Beautiful writing, scathing in its depictions of completely self- obsessed middle class pretensions and idleness. I rarely find supposedly humorous writing at all funny but nearly every paragraph has some damning but witty line or absurd scenario. Love.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that humor is a completely neglected genre. Not enough people celebrate the ridiculous. Lucia and all the people of Riseholme and Tilling are ridiculous in the extreme, and Lucia's feud with Olga is better than Elizabeth Bennett and Katherine deBourgh.

Simply a delight of satire and fun. Who could not find the Lucia and Mapp books a joy to read and re-read? For once the TV adaptation was close to the books and the first from the BBC was by far the best with Geraldine McEwen and Prunella Scales as the protagonists.

If you live in Riseholme, England, you are a minion of Lucia (pronounced the Italian way), the Queen of Art and Culture. She controls the social network and has raised the poor little town to a degree of culture it has never known before. Any social event MUST have Lucia play the first movement of The Moonlight Sonata (she doesn't play the other two because they don't have the same 'mood' although her best friend Georgie knows they are actually too difficult for her!) and provide the requisite c...

Delightful read for all fans of pleasant social satire. This volume, which contains 3 titles - Queen Lucia, Miss Mapp and Lucia in London – along with it’s companion volume is a bargain to own for all those fans of the witty, malicious comedy which happens between Lucia and her archrival Ms Mapp.

Hilarious! A wonderful portrayal of small-town snobbery in the 1920s. Refined and lady-like, Lucia will nevertheless go to any lengths to assert her supremacy over her rivals - and no trick is too underhand for her (including stealing everyone else's good ideas!). Yet, despite her affectations and devious tricks, she enlivens her community. She's the sort of person you miss when she's not there, although her presence can be highly irritating to all. A wonderful read. Although written some time a...

The first movement of the Moonlight Sonata came on the radio today and I thought, 'if Lucia can play that, then so can I!' Such is literary fantasy, I have never played any piano, ever. Now I am reviewing this before I have even finished reading it, so delicious is the farcical, descriptive prose and reported speech of Fred Benson. He never lets up and this becomes one of those books that you may hesitate to read in public lest you embarrass yourself on a train. Nobody would notice on a bus, the...

Deliciously satirical and entertaining observations of the human condition!

It's a shame E.F. Benson only wrote 6 Lucia books! Good thing they are all available in 2 yummy volumes! Lucia and her archrival Ms Mapp are hands down two of the funniest, most malicious enemies to ever see print. Multiple rereadings of this book have not made it any less funny!

Witty, cheeky, very British. Hurrah!

A friend recommended the Mapp and Lucia books to me some time ago, and I got given this omnibus for my birthday this year. Having read the first two (of three) volumes in this collection, I'm firmly of the opinion that I'm not going to read the third, nor will I be looking for volume 2 of this series. I didn't hugely enjoy either book, although I preferred Queen Lucia to Miss Mapp, the eponymous protagonist of which I actively disliked. Individual reviews below.== Queen Lucia ==Mrs Emmeline Luca...

I enjoyed these 3 novels so much I'm actually putting off getting the next volume because I don't want to finish them too quickly! Absolutely wonderful.

Utterly divine and not at all tarsome.