Böcker av E. F. Benson

"Darling mother," he was saying, "I really was frightened as to whether you would mind. I couldn't help remembering how you received Mr. Taynton's proposal that you should go for a drive in his car. Don't you remember, Mr. Taynton? Mother's nose did go in the air. It's no use denying it. So I thought, perhaps, that she wouldn't like my having one. But I wanted it so dreadfully, and so I bought it without telling her, and drove down in it today, which is my birthday, so that she couldn't be too severe." Mr. Taynton, while Morris was speaking, had picked up the nutcrackers the boy had been using, and was gravely exploding the shells of the nuts he had helped himself to. So Morris cracked the next one with a loud bang between his white even teeth. "Dear Morris," said his mother, "how foolish of you. Give Mr. Morris another nutcracker," she added to the parlor-maid. "What's foolish?" asked he, cracking another. "Oh Morris, your teeth," she said.

A collection of rare horror stories that will thrill fans of classic writers such as M. R. James, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and E. F. Benson.

Subtly brilliant comedy of social rivalry between the wars. Emmeline Lucas (known universally to her friends as Lucia) is an arch-snob of the highest order. In Miss Elizabeth Mapp of Mallards Lucia meets her match. Ostensibly the most civil and genteel of society ladies, there is no plan too devious, no plot too cunning, no depths to which they would not sink, in order to win the battle for social supremacy. Using as their deadly weapons garden parties, bridge evenings and charming teas, the two combatants strive to outcharm each other - and the whole of Tilling society - as they vie for the position of doyenne of the town.

"e;Mapp & Lucia"e; first published in 1935. "e;Lucia's progress"e; first published 1935. "e;Trouble for Lucia"e; first published in 1939.