Edward Frederic Benson was a superb chronicler of the eccentricities of English society and the creator of one of the most indomitable and fascinating characters in 20th century English writing. She is Mrs. Emmeline Lucas, better known to all as Lucia, the Queen of Riseholme high society.

In his first Lucia novel called Queen Lucia, Benson introduces us to the inhabitants of the peaceful Elizabethan village of Riseholme. This quaint village is located not far from London and is filled with middle-aged residents of comfortable means; well, at least the ones we read about are. There are a few Rolls-Royces lumbering around and the owners speak of £2,000 as easily as the wealthy Londoners of today would speak of £20,000.

Their occupations are housekeeping, gardening, golf, bridge and bickering. They all have maids, cooks and gardeners, so that leaves golf and lots of entertaining with bridge and bitterness at the foreground. Oh, I forgot gossiping . . . there’s an over abundance of that, and it’s all delicious.

Lucia and her sidekick, Georgie Pilson, a local bachelor, are the self-made leaders of the social life. Well, Lucia is definitely the driving force and Georgie is her dutiful follower and hand-kisser. Georgie is a closeted gay man, as was his creator. He wears a little cape, does embroidery, dyes his hair and does sensitive watercolors of the flowers in Lucia’s Garden. You just know there are Boys in the background. And, if his butch golf-playing sisters aren’t lesbians, well, I’ll guess again.

At the opening of this first book, we are taken back to a warm July day in the 1920s. Lucia has just returned on the train from a cultural excursion to London and she has walked the half-mile from the station with a devious thought in mind. Her friends will be casually waiting on the Village Green expecting to catch a glimpse of her arrival. They will be surprised when they see nobody but her maid get out of the cab at the Lucia’s palatial home, the Hurst. Lucia feels "this will give them all the thrill of stimulation and speculation that is their emotional daily bread."

She knows they will all wonder what has happened to her, especially Daisy Quantock, Georgie Pilson’s nosy neighbor. Daisy has recently been involved with the study of “Christian Science” and is full of the gloomiest views as regards any of her friends at the slightest excuse. Georgie, on the other hand has figured out what Lucia has done and walks past the Hurst to see if he can hear her practicing any of the right-hand parts of the Moonlight Sonata on her Steinway grand.

Lucia is a profoundly irritating woman. She is bossy, willful and filled with energy; others groan beneath her yoke and from time to time try to shake it off, but to no avail. Daisy tries the hardest to be Lucia’s nemesis, but Lucia squelches her at every turn. Daisy’s newest find is an Indian guru who turn’s out to be anything but. Lucia tries to steal the glory and lures "guru" as he is known, over to her side. The repercussions at the discovery of who and what he really are are priceless.

Lucia and her husband, Peppino, speak fragments of Italian to each other. Their knowledge of the language, “though firm and perfect as far as it went, could not be considered going far and was useless for conversational purposes, unless they merely wanted to know each other.” Lucia has una giardino segreto (a secret garden), where she stretches and exercises and plots to squelch any pretenders that seek to usurp her social dominance.

The same lack of ability in speakinh Italian goes for Lucia and Georgie who attempt to speak the language to each other even though neither of them knows but a few words. Lucia calls Georgie Georgino mio and returns the favor with Lucia mia. They both talk baby talk to each other and . . . in Italian, yet. They call their maids la domestiche when the maids are present. It's as if these maids who run their homes and knew everything about them had no idea of what they were saying. Georgie's maid, Foljambe, is quite intelligent and almost as bossy as Lucia.

Twice in this series of novels Lucia, Peppino and Georgie are almost caught when a real Italian shows up; the second time is just as funny as the first, but by that time Lucia is a widow and we learn that none of them really knew the language at all.

The population of Riseholme looks to Lucia as the leading light in all things cultural. They are expected at the Hurst for an evening’s entertainment and sit in rapt attention as Lucia and Georgie play celestial Mozartino. Georgie spends hours chatting and playing the piano with Lucia. Georgie plays the parts for the left hand and Lucia, naturally, gets the parts that have the melody. We get to meet the odious and imperious Lady Ambermere, and her equally revolting dog, Pug. The dog is held on a pillow by Lady Ambermere's companion, Miss Lyall.

Then, there’s Mrs. Weston in her Bath chair, who is pushed around the Village Green by Colonel Boucher. There's a pair of young women, Piggy and Goosey Antrobus, who act like teenagers, but are actually more Georgie’s age . . . in their late forties. A fly appears in the ointment of Lucia’s salve in the form of opera singer Olga Bracely. She is kind and generous and Georgie falls in love with her. Lucia makes a fool of herself, but regroups, counter-marches and even retreats before it is all over.

We don’t meet Lucia’s archrival in all things until the third book. She is Miss Elizabeth Mapp of Tilling. Benson lived and wrote the Lucia stories in Rye, a town he identified as Tilling in his books. He lived in the very house on the High Street that was formerly occupied by Henry James. This is the same house Elizabeth Mapp lived in until Lucia eventually wormed it out of her.

E.F. Benson became the Mayor of Rye and Lucia, in a bid to outdo Elizabeth Mapp, became the Mayoress of Tilling. If Benson had lived through World War II, there is no doubt in any of his fan’s minds that Lucia would have become a General of some sort.

There is a forward by Nancy Mitford who said that the characters remain “as fresh as paint.” When Mitford came to visit, Fred Benson welcomed her with, ”This is Miss Mapp’s House, this is Miss Mapp’s Garden Room and I am Miss Mapp.” I don’t find it strange that he may, indeed, have been his own source for the character. He wouldn’t be the first author to use his feminine side as the basis for a fictional personality.

Nancy Mitford used real people like Lord Berners and Stephen Tennant as the basis for characters in some of her novels. It doesn’t seem strange to me to find out that Benson’s Lucia character is based on the real-life personage of Marie Corelli, a fellow author and oddball celebrity about London.

Once you read this novel you will surely become a Luciaphile along with thousands of others who cherish the antics of Edward F. Benson’s delightfully malicious characters. You will want to know more of their adventures. (Perennial Library - Harper & Row, ISBN: 0-06-091372-X)

When I was writing this review, I was in the process of reading The Life of E.F. Benson by Brian Masters only to find out it isn't in the Epinions database. I therefore included a lot of that information in my previous review of E.F. Bensons Ghost Stories.

Fred Benson and other homosexual men of his time lived a closeted life in the aftermath of the trials of Oscar Wilde. Life may have been a bit restrained, but not so much that Benson wasn’t identified in gay literary and social circles as Dodo, the lead character from his early society novel of the same name. That doesn’t sound too closeted to me.

Benson created six Lucia books in all. Fortunately for those of us who treasure these stories, a New York publisher, Thomas Y. Crowell, saw fit to combine them all into one volume in 1977. Crowell titled their collective work Make Way For Lucia. The book is now out of print but can be obtained at Web sites like www.Alibris.com. It might be worth your while to check out that site.


Recommended: Yes