Books with author E. F. Benson

Ever since he was four years old, and had begun to think seriously, as a boy should, David Blaize had been aware that there was a real world lying somewhere just below the ordinary old thing in which his father and mother and nurse and the rest of the fast-asleep grown-up people lived. Boys began to get drowsy, he knew, about the time that they were ten, though they might still have occasional waking moments, and soon after that they went sound asleep, and lost all chance of ever seeing the real world. If you asked grown-ups some tremendously important question, such as ‘Why do the leaves fall off the trees when there is glass on the lake?’ as likely as not they would begin talking in their sleep about frost and sap, just as if that had got anything to do with the real reason. Or they might point out that it wasn’t real glass on the lake, but ice, and, if they were more than usually sound asleep, take a piece of the lake-glass and let you hold it in your fingers till it became water. That was to show you that what you had called glass was really frozen water, another word for which was ice. They thought that it was very wonderful of them to explain it all so nicely, and tell you at great length that real glass did not become water if you held it in your fingers, which you must remember to wash before dinner. Perhaps they would take you to the nursery window when you came in from your walk, and encourage you to put your finger on the pane in order to see that glass did not become water. This sort of thing would make David impatient, and he asked, ‘Then why don’t you put ice in the window, and then you could boil it for tea in the kettle?’ And if his nurse wanted to go to sleep again, she would say, ‘Now you’re talking nonsense, Master David.’Now that was the ridiculous thing! Of course he was talking nonsense just to humour Nannie. He was helping her with her nonsense about the difference between ice and glass. He had been wanting to talk sense all the time, and learn something about the real world, in which the fish put a glass roof on their house for the winter as soon as they had collected enough red fire-leaves to keep them warm until the hot weather came round again. That might not be the precise way in which it happened, but it was something of that sort. Instead of pinching herself awake, poor sleepy Nannie went babbling on about ice and glass and sap and spring, in a way that was truly tedious and quite beside the real point.

Ever since he was four years old, and had begun to think seriously, as a boy should, David Blaize had been aware that there was a real world lying somewhere just below the ordinary old thing in which his father and mother and nurse and the rest of the fast-asleep grown-up people lived. Boys began to get drowsy, he knew, about the time that they were ten, though they might still have occasional waking moments, and soon after that they went sound asleep, and lost all chance of ever seeing the real world. If you asked grown-ups some tremendously important question, such as ‘Why do the leaves fall off the trees when there is glass on the lake?’ as likely as not they would begin talking in their sleep about frost and sap, just as if that had got anything to do with the real reason. Or they might point out that it wasn’t real glass on the lake, but ice, and, if they were more than usually sound asleep, take a piece of the lake-glass and let you hold it in your fingers till it became water. That was to show you that what you had called glass was really frozen water, another word for which was ice. They thought that it was very wonderful of them to explain it all so nicely, and tell you at great length that real glass did not become water if you held it in your fingers, which you must remember to wash before dinner. Perhaps they would take you to the nursery window when you came in from your walk, and encourage you to put your finger on the pane in order to see that glass did not become water. This sort of thing would make David impatient, and he asked, ‘Then why don’t you put ice in the window, and then you could boil it for tea in the kettle?’ And if his nurse wanted to go to sleep again, she would say, ‘Now you’re talking nonsense, Master David.’Now that was the ridiculous thing! Of course he was talking nonsense just to humour Nannie. He was helping her with her nonsense about the difference between ice and glass. He had been wanting to talk sense all the time, and learn something about the real world, in which the fish put a glass roof on their house for the winter as soon as they had collected enough red fire-leaves to keep them warm until the hot weather came round again. That might not be the precise way in which it happened, but it was something of that sort. Instead of pinching herself awake, poor sleepy Nannie went babbling on about ice and glass and sap and spring, in a way that was truly tedious and quite beside the real point.

This carefully crafted ebook: "Paying Guests (Unabridged)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Paying Guests is one of the last novels of E.F. Benson. The story is set around the Wentworth mention, a small boarding house in Bolton Spa and its owners and lodgers, usual and recognizable Benson's characters. They are quite unlikable, mainly upper-middle-class English people who came to the Spa to cure their body illnesses, but also to fill the time and escape boredom despite having no passions, interests and work. Edward Frederic Benson (1867–1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer, known professionally as E.F. Benson. He started his novel writing career in 1893 with the fashionably controversial Dodo, which was an instant success, and followed it with a variety of satire and romantic and supernatural melodrama. He repeated the success of Dodo, with sequels to this novel, but the greatest success came relatively late in his career with The Mapp and Lucia series consisting of six novels and two short stories. The novels feature humorous incidents in the lives of (mainly) upper-middle-class British people in the 1920s and 1930s, vying for social prestige and one-upmanship in an atmosphere of extreme cultural snobbery. Benson was also known as a writer of atmospheric, oblique, and at times humorous or satirical ghost stories.

Certainly the breakfast tongue, which was for the first time that morning, was not of the pleasant reddish hue which Mrs. Altham was justified in expecting considering that the delicacy in question was not an ordinary tinned tongue (you had to take things as you found them, if your false sense of economy led you to order tinned goods) but one that came out of a fine glass receptacle with an eminent label on it. It was more of the colour of cold mutton, unattractive if not absolutely unpleasant to the eye, while to the palate it proved to be singularly lacking in flavour. Altogether it was a great disappointment, and for reason, when Mr. Altham set out at a quarter-past twelve to stroll along to the local club in Queensgate Street with the ostensible purpose of seeing if there was any fresh telegram about the disturbances in Morocco, his wife accompanied him to the door of that desirable mansion, round which was grouped a variety of chained-up dogs in various states of boredom and irritation, and went on into the High Street in order to make in person a justifiable complaint at her grocer’s. She would be sorry to have to take her custom elsewhere, but if Mr. Pritchard did not see his way to sending her another tongue (of course without further charge) she would be obliged....

"Paying Guests" is one of the last novels of E.F. Benson. The story is set around the Wentworth mention, a small boarding house in Bolton Spa and its owners and lodgers, usual and recognizable Benson's characters. They are quite unlikable, mainly upper-middle-class English people who came to the Spa to cure their body illnesses, but also to fill the time and escape boredom despite having no passions, interests and work.Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer, known professionally as E.F. Benson.

This carefully crafted ebook: "Paying Guests (A Satirical Novel)” is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents.Paying Guests is one of the last novels of E.F. Benson. The story is set around the Wentworth mention, a small boarding house in Bolton Spa and its owners and lodgers, usual and recognizable Benson's characters. They are quite unlikable, mainly upper-middle-class English people who came to the Spa to cure their body illnesses, but also to fill the time and escape boredom despite having no passions, interests and work.Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer, known professionally as E.F. Benson. He started his novel writing career in 1893 with the fashionably controversial Dodo, which was an instant success, and followed it with a variety of satire and romantic and supernatural melodrama. He repeated the success of Dodo, with sequels to this novel, but the greatest success came relatively late in his career with The Mapp and Lucia series consisting of six novels and two short stories. The novels feature humorous incidents in the lives of (mainly) upper-middle-class British people in the 1920s and 1930s, vying for social prestige and one-upmanship in an atmosphere of extreme cultural snobbery. Benson was also known as a writer of atmospheric, oblique, and at times humorous or satirical ghost stories.

Queen Lucia and Other Stories contained 10 works written by Edward Frederic Benson (24 July 1867 – 29 February 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer, known professionally as E.F. Benson. His friends called him FredThese are the 10 works of E. F. Benson in this book:1. Queen Lucia (1920)2. The Judgment Books (1895)3. The Vintage (1898)4. The Valkyries (1903)5. The Relentless City (1903)6. The Angel of Pain (1905)7. The Blotting Book (1908)8. Daisy's Aunt (1910)9. Thorley Weir (1913)10 Miss Mapp (1922)

E F Benson was a prolific writer, producing over a hundred books. He is perhaps most well-known for his mysteries and tales of the supernatural as well as the comic Mapp and Lucia series. This collection includes a variety of fiction stories - Across the Stream (spiritualism), The Blotting Book (mystery), Collected Short Stories (variety), Paying Guests (precursor to Mapp and Lucia), Mrs Ames (similar to Mapp and Lucia) and a collection of Spook Stories.

The novels feature humorous incidents in the lives of (mainly) upper-middle-class British people in the 1920s and 1930s, vying for social prestige and one-upmanship in an atmosphere of extreme cultural snobbery. Several of them are set in the small seaside town of Tilling, closely based on Rye, East Sussex, where Benson lived for a number of years and (like Lucia) served as mayor. Lucia previously lived at Riseholme, based on Broadway, Worcestershire, from where she brought to Tilling her celebrated recipe for Lobster à la Riseholme. Meet Emmeline Lucas, known to her friends as Lucia, the undisputed social leader of the town of Riseholme, and her husband Phillip, writer of prose poems. Risholme is also home to Georgie Pillson, who plays duets with Lucia and collects bibelots, Daisy Quantock, who has discovered an Indian Guru who will teach her meditation, Olga Bracely, the operatic soprano, and Signor Cortese composer of operas.

E. F. Benson, best known for his irresistible Mapp and Lucia novels set in the fictional town of Tilling, England, was a prolific and beloved novelist. Though the Mapp and Lucia books remain popular to this day, this kindred book will be back in print for the first time since its initial publication.The son of E. W. Benson, archbishop of Canterbury from 1883 to 1896, the young E. F. Benson was educated at Marlborough School and at King's College, Cambridge. After graduation he worked in Athens for the British School of Archaeology from 1892 to 1895, and later in Egypt for the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. In 1893 he published Dodo, a novel that attracted wide attention. It was followed by a number of other successful novels, including his hugely popular Mapp and Lucia series. In 1938 he was made an honorary fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. He died in February 1940.Praise for Mrs. Ames:"An extraordinary study in comedy and quite the best thing artistically that Mr. Benson has done."-New York Times

Thick yellow fog, and in consequence electric light to dress by and breakfast by, was the open ing day of the year. Never, to anyone who looks at this fact in the right spirit, did a year dawn more characteristically. The denseness, the utter inscrutability of the face of that which should be, was never better typified. We blindly groped on the threshold of the future, feeling here for a bell handle, here for a knocker, while the door still stood shut. Then, about mid-day, sudden com motions shook the vapours; dim silhouettes of house-roofs, promised lands perhaps, or profiled wrecks, stood suddenly out against swirling orange Whirlpools of mist; and from my window, which commanded a double view up and down Oxford Street, I looked out over the crawling traffic, with an interest, as if in the unfolding of some dramatic.