Queen Lucia (1920). By: Edward Frederic Benson: Novel

Edward Frederic ＂E. F.＂ Benson (24 July 1867 - 29 February 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer. Early life: E. F. Benson was born at Wellington College in Berkshire, the fifth child of the headmaster, Edward White Benson (later Chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral, Bishop of Truro and Archbishop of Canterbury), and his wife born Mary Sidgwick (＂Minnie＂). E. F. Benson was the younger brother of Arthur Christopher Benson, who wrote the words to ＂Land of Hope and Glory＂, Robert Hugh Benson, author of several novels and Roman Catholic apologetic works, and Margaret Benson (Maggie), an author and amateur Egyptologist. Two other siblings died young. Benson’s parents had six children and no grandchildren. Benson was educated at Temple Grove School, then at Marlborough College, where he wrote some of his earliest works and upon which he based his novel David Blaize. He continued his education at King’s College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, he was a member of the Pitt Club, and later in life he became an honorary fellow of Magdalene College. WORKS: Benson’s first book published was Sketches From Marlborough. He started his novel writing career with the (then) fashionably controversial Dodo (1893), which was an instant success, and followed it with a variety of satire and romantic and supernatural melodrama. He repeated the success of Dodo, which featured a scathing description of composer and militant suffragette Ethel Smyth (which she ＂gleefully acknowledged＂, according to actress Prunella Scales), with the same cast of characters a generation later: Dodo the Second (1914), ＂a unique chronicle of the pre-1914 Bright Young Things＂ and Dodo Wonders (1921), ＂a first-hand social history of the Great War in Mayfair and the Shires＂. The Mapp and Lucia series, written relatively late in his career, consists of six novels and two short stories. The novels are: Queen Lucia, Lucia in London, Miss Mapp (including the short story ＂The Male Impersonator＂), Mapp and Lucia, Lucia’s Progress (published as The Worshipful Lucia in the United States) and Trouble for Lucia. The short stories are ＂The Male Impersonator＂ and ＂Desirable Residences＂. Both appear in anthologies of Benson’s short stories, and the former is also often appended to the end of the novel Miss Mapp. The last three novels were produced as a television series by London Weekend Television for the recently-initiated Channel 4 during 1985-6 with the series title Mapp and Lucia and featuring Nigel Hawthorne, Geraldine McEwan and Prunella Scales; the first four have been adapted for BBC Radio 4 by both Aubrey Woods and (most recently) Ned Sherrin; the fifth, Lucia’s Progress, was adapted for BBC Radio 4 during 2008 by John Peacock. During 2007, the television series was rerun by the British digital channel ITV3. A new 3-part adaptation written by Steve Pemberton was broadcast during three nights on BBC One; 29th, 30th, and 31 December 2014. Benson was also known as a writer of atmospheric and at times humorous or satirical ghost stories, which were often first published in story magazines such as Pearson’s Magazine or Hutchinson’s Magazine, 20 of which were illustrated by Edmund Blampied. These ＂spook stories＂, as they were also termed, were then reprinted in collections by his principal publisher, Walter Hutchinson. His 1906 short story, ＂The Bus-Conductor＂, a fatal-crash premonition tale about a person haunted by a hearse driver, has been adapted several times, notably during 1944 (for the movie Dead of Night and as an anecdote in Bennett Cerf’s Ghost Stories anthology published the same year) and for a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone. The catchphrase from the story, ＂Room for one more＂, created a legend, and also occurs in the 1986 Oingo Boingo song, ＂Dead Man’s Party＂.