Books #3 (Is there anybody out there who loves these books?)




The six Lucia books are listed above.  The first four books  are collected in a
volume called All About Lucia.

 

This is a call in the dark.  I love the 'Lucia' books by E.F. Benson, and I must be the only person in the United States (maybe the world) who does.  Thirty or so years ago PBS had series about a comic English heroine based on E.F. Benson's novel Mapp and Lucia - DVD still available on Amazon.  The series, starring Geraldine McEwen (a regular in various BBC productions) and Prunella Scales (famous as the wife in Faulty Towers),  is set between the two World Wars in a place called Tilling, closely based on Rye, East Sussex. 

This series delighted me, and I soon read all six Lucia books, beginning with Queen Lucia, Lucia's social rule of Riseholme, ( based on Broadway in Worchestershire), to her conquest of London, Lucia in London, her move to Tilling, Mapp and Lucia, and her final triumph as mayor of Tilling (although Lucia's triumphs were always tenuous). 

Benson, himself, lived in Rye and even served as mayor there.  He lived in  Mapp/Lucia's house (Mallards) as did Henry James before him.  Unfortunately, the famous Garden House in the stories was destroyed by a German bomb in WWII. 

I read all six of the Lucia books again last year and was so sad when I finished -- once again -- the last Lucia book, the sixth book,  Benson wrote:  Trouble for Lucia.  The fifth book, The Worshipful Lucia, chronicles how Lucia gets herself elected mayor of Tilling - hence her title, Your Worshipful, which apparently used to be the title given to mayors.  That book has since been renamed Lucia's Progress, I supposed, because the first title was so out of date.

 These paperbacks were reissued in 1987.

  Then recently I downloaded (for $3) Mapp and Lucia on to my Kindle and re-read it again.  Besides admiring the way Benson develops his characters and conflicts, plays on frailties, and punishes hubris, I find I love all those characters inspite of themselves.  Now that I have that book on my Kindle, I am constantly tempted to start reading it again or to take just a peek and see what that naughty, but enterprising Lucia is up to.  Mysteriously,  that whole cast of characters, living in Tilling, exists for me in cyberspace. 

I have yet to find anyone who has heard of these novels - much less read them.  One exception:  I once mentioned them at a Jane Austen get together and a young woman said, "Oh, yes, I think my mother read those books."  Grrrrr!

Welcome to Abigail's







Perhaps, because this restaurant is popular with bikers, this is one of the
ornaments that dangles from the ceiling. A canoe also hangs above the kitchen.

One of my favorite restaurants, yes, my favorite restaurant, is Abigail's in Rocheport, Missouri. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Abigail's is named for the propriators' daughter, who is now old enough to occasionally to clear tables.  Long ago, in the 80's, there were yuppie restaurants where you were treated as if they were doing you a favor to let you in.  (My then teenaged son worked in one such restaurant as a bus boy in the Central West End of St. Louis.)  Abigails reminds me alittle bit of those long ago times, perhaps, because there are a limited number of tables available.  The waitress is usually the wife; the husband, the cook.  It used to be the other way around, and I was rather intimidated by the husband-waiter.  I was not the only one intimidated.  Apparently, some customer was so ill advised as to ask our husband/waiter 'what was good.'  I'm so glad he does the cooking now.  (Maybe he's glad, too.)


Taken through the window, this is the cook's cutting board
and maybe his coffee cup.  The neon boat is part of the decor.
(Click to enlarge.). 

The cuisine is written daily on a chalkboard set on an easel.  It has mostly hearty salads that can include salmon, chicken or filet.  Pastas are also to be had and of course desserts from paradise:  chocolate cream pie, smooth as glass; strawberry cake; carrot cake, chocolate cake, pecan pie.  My brother asked for the pecan pie so often that the waitress threatened to name the pie after him.

Trudie took me to Abigail's for my birthday this month.  The waitress/propriator took this picture of us.  For the record, I am the short one.

The End