Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Queen Lucia by E.F. Benson Queen Lucia. E. F. Benson (1867-1940) was born at Wellington College in Berkshire, where his father, who later went on to become the Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first Headmaster. He wrote 105 books in all. Queen Lucia (first published in 1920) was the first of Benson’s ‘Mapp and Lucia’ novels of which there were six. This first book is a comedy of manners based in the provincial village of Riseholme, where Emmeline Lucas (the Queen Lucia of the title) presides over the social and artistic universe of the gullible residents. Her aide-de-camp in these matters is the somewhat effete Georgie Pillson and the chief competitor for her ‘crown’ is Daisy Quantock. The scandal of the Guru, the psychical goings on with Princess Popoffski and the arrival into the sleepy village of a famous Prima Donna all conspire to threaten her supremacy… Book Review: Queen Lucia (by E.F. Benson) : BH. Queen Lucia, by E.F. Benson, Moyer Bell, Wakefield, Rhode Island. $10.95, paperback. Just in time to fill the vacuum left by the demise of ‘Seinfeld’, Moyer Bell has published what could be considered its more sophisticated literary antecedent, Queen Lucia. In the same way that the famed television series ‘about nothing’ focuses on the trivial escapades of its quirky New York characters, E.F. Benson’s brilliant novel introduces us to the daily routine of the Riseholme set, the residents of a small, Edwardian English village. The driving force in Riseholme, indeed the very sun around which the other villagers orbit, is Mrs. Emmeline Lucas, known by her devotees as Lucia–the Italian la Lucia meaning ‘the wife of Lucas’. The pompous appellation is the reader’s first glimpse into Lucia’s affected personae. Further indications of her pretension include her home, The Hurst, with all its rooms named after Shakespearean plays, and her highly publicized penchant for music and drama. My personal favourite is her habit of playing the slow movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata while eschewing the other two movements because ‘she could never bring herself to believe that they were on the same astounding level as the first, and, besides, they “went” very much faster.’ I could go on and on about Lucia, but as with many of the real people like her I know, mere description does not suffice. You have to know her to fully appreciate the nuances of her personality. So in order to ‘meet’ her, you’ll have to read the book. The other characters who populate the fictional village are equally entertaining. Georgie, Lucia’s effeminate best friend, does needlework, dresses foppishly, and shrinks in abashed horror from his boorish sisters, Hermy and Ursy. He has spent most of his adult life deferring to Lucia’s position of social superiority with a childlike acceptance. But through the course of the novel Georgie comes to question her omnipotence and glimpse, if only momentarily, the truly pathetic nature of her affectations. Daisy Quantock, as the ever-sarcastic narrator informs us, is ‘one of those intensely happy people who pass through life in ecstatic pursuit of some idea which those who do not share it call a fad.’ This yearning first leads her to pursue the curative powers of Uric Acid, and then, almost as disastrously, down the path of Christian Science. Daisy at first faithfully defers to Lucia’s position as social queen, but she, too, gains a fierce sense of independence from her, and even makes an attempt at rivalling Lucia for her position of primacy. Other Riseholmeites who fill out the social circle include the crusty old Colonel Boucher and his secret sweetheart, the bath-chair-bound Mrs. Weston; the Antrobus sisters, Piggie and Goosie, and their old, nearly-deaf mother; and Lady Ambermere, the ancient dowager of The Hall. Benson choreographs all these characters in such a way that their daily foibles provide endless comic material. Just as Seinfeld gave us the ‘Soup Nazi’ and the ‘Yada Yada’ episodes, Benson conjures up even more laughable escapades, notably ‘the Guru’ and ‘Princess Popofski’. But the true drama of the novel centres around the arrival of a newcomer to Riseholme, Olga Bracely, a talented young opera singer who decides to move to the village because she’s looking for a ‘delicious ‘hole-in-the-corner, lazy backwater sort of place where nothing ever happens, and nobody ever does anything.’ Without ever trying to, Olga usurps Lucia’s position as chatelaine of Riseholme and unintentionally exposes Lucia’s provincialism and ignorance in the process. The novel works its way to an appropriately hilarious conclusion that leaves Riseholme, just like the typical 20th-century sitcom, pretty much back to normal again. In the end it is Olga who makes the most astute observation about the village and its way of life: ‘I never knew before how terribly interesting little things were. Is it all of you who take such a tremendous interest in them that makes them so absorbing, or is it that they are absorbing in themselves . ?’ As for me, I readily admit to being completely sucked in by these ‘little things’ for the last 243 pages. I’d have to say that it’s a little of both. walterblog. I've written a very popular essay about my passion for E F Benson for the Newtown Review of Books . As expected, after writing it I was inundated with people on social media who were Benson fans. And, equally expected, my own Bensonmania was re-ignited, and I began to read the novels again. In snatches at first - a page of Lucia in London here, a chapter of Mapp and Lucia there. E F Benson A couple of years ago I appeared at the Queer Literary Salon at the Melbourne Writers Festival. One of the things that MC Benjamin Law asked us to do was bring along the books that helped shape our Queer lives. Of course, I brought along my tattered old 1986 Black Swan edition of Queen Lucia with its fantastic faux-jazz age cover. My much-read Black Swan edition. Most of the young audience hadn't heard of Benson, but I was later to discover that Dennis Altman, the gay eminence grise amongst us, was also a Lucia fan. A recent audio edition of Queen Lucia. I have read Queen Lucia at least six times, and I must say it simply gets better with every reading. Benson was a master, and his arch phrasing and perfect - though always subtle - rendering of social types means that any reader would feel at home in its pages. One of the things I find interesting about the book is its consideration of alternative religions. Published in 1920, it was written at a moment of a great rekindling of interest in Eastern religion and Spiritualism in England. Benson's provincial middle-class characters have taken to these things just a moment too late, and the small town of Riseholme is abuzz with gurus, yoga, mediums and planchettes. Daisy Quantock has recently abandoned the study of Christian Science and has instead become beholden of a dozen other new religious fads, some of which are taken up with relish by everyone in the small village. There is a great deal of casual racism in the book which makes it occasionally squirm-making, but as always it is pointless to demand that an Edwardian writer hold the same range of racial sensitivites that we can lay claim to in the 21st century. I was struck, too, by just how monstrous Lucia was. Benson's great anti-heroine is pretentious, egotistical and oddly fragile. This is the arc she will travel in all of the subsequent books: at first funny, she becomes bossy then vicious and finally pathetic as the reader begins to feel sorry for this silly, manipulative woman. And then there is Georgie. More and more I am intrigued by this character, surely the first great sympathetric homosexual in English literature. Georgie, with his combover and glass cabinet of bibelots , his needlework and summer suits. This great middle-aged boy is the hero of Benson's novels. Re-reading Queen Lucia is always a delight. When I do so I become even more convinced of Benson's genius as a writer - there is simply not a dull moment in the whole book. Your IP Address in Germany is Blocked from www.gutenberg.org. We apologize for this inconvenience. Your IP address has been automatically blocked from accessing the Project Gutenberg website, www.gutenberg.org. This is because the geoIP database shows your address is in the country of Germany. Diagnostic information: Blocked at germany.shtml Your IP address: 116.202.236.252 Referrer URL (if available): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6840 Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_9_2) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/36.0.1944.0 Safari/537.36 Date: Tuesday, 15-Jun-2021 18:12:31 GMT. Why did this block occur? A Court in Germany ordered that access to certain items in the Project Gutenberg collection are blocked from Germany. Project Gutenberg believes the Court has no jurisdiction over the matter, but until the issue is resolved, it will comply. For more information about the German court case, and the reason for blocking all of Germany rather than single items, visit PGLAF's information page about the German lawsuit. For more information about the legal advice Project Gutenberg has received concerning international issues, visit PGLAF's International Copyright Guidance for Project Gutenberg.