E F Benson

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Selected and Introduced by Mark Gatiss

Ghost Stories

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Queen Lucia

Queen Lucia, Miss Mapp and Mapp and Lucia

Mapp and Lucia Omnibus

The Luck of the Vails

Mapp And Lucia

Mapp and Lucia

The Blotting Book

This novel, one of the progenitors of the classic British mystery, bristles with elegant suspense as it ushers its upper-class characters from their mansions to the harsh reality of a criminal courtroom

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 
WH Auden, Nancy Mitford and Noel Coward were among his fans... But have you discovered E. F. Benson yet? 
 
Morris Assheton is in love and means to be married. But his happiness is spoilt when he discovers that someone has been whispering poisonous rumours about him to the girl’s father. The culprit is Mills, dastardly partner to the Assheton family's trusted lawyer. Morris vows revenge. 
 
When Mills’ body is discovered, brutally beaten, the ugly quarrel comes to light and suspicion naturally falls on Morris. His innocence is debated in a tense courtroom, as an eager public and press look on. 
 
Murder mystery... Courtroom drama. This is a classic whodunnit from the author of Mapp and Lucia. Crime fiction at its best.

READ ALL AGATHA CHRISTIE? TRY A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 
A violent murder disturbs the high society of Edwardian Brighton in this masterful whodunnit from the author of Mapp and Lucia

MORE VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERIES 
 MARGERY ALLINGHAM 
Mystery Mile 
Police at the Funeral 
Sweet Danger 
Flowers for the Judge 
The Case of the Late Pig 
The Fashion in Shrouds 
Traitor’s Purse 
Coroner’s Pidgin 
More Work for the Undertaker 
The Tiger in the Smoke 
The Beckoning Lady 
Hide My Eyes 
The China Governess 
The Mind Readers 
Cargo of Eagles 
 
E. F. BENSON 
The Blotting Book 
The Luck of the Vails 
 
NICHOLAS BLAKE 
A Question of Proof 
Thou Shell of Death 
There’s Trouble Brewing 
The Beast Must Die 
The Smiler With the Knife 
Malice in Wonderland 
The Case of the Abominable Snowman 
Minute for Murder 
Head of a Traveller 
The Dreadful Hollow 
The Whisper in the Gloom 
End of Chapter 
The Widow’s Cruise 
The Worm of Death 
The Sad Variety 
The Morning After Death 
 
EDMUND CRISPIN 
Buried for Pleasure 
The Case of the Gilded Fly 
Holy Disorders 
Love Lies Bleeding 
The Moving Toyshop 
Swan Song 
 
A. A. MILNE 
The Red House Mystery 
 
GLADYS MITCHELL 
Speedy Death 
The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop 
The Longer Bodies 
The Saltmarsh Murders 
Death and the Opera 
The Devil at Saxon Wall 
Dead Men’s Morris 
Come Away, Death 
St Peter’s Finger 
Brazen Tongue 
Hangman’s Curfew 
When Last I Died 
Laurels Are Poison 
Here Comes a Chopper 
Death and the Maiden 
Tom Brown’s Body 
Groaning Spinney 
The Devil’s Elbow 
The Echoing Strangers 
Watson’s Choice 
The Twenty-Third Man 
Spotted Hemlock 
My Bones Will Keep 
Three Quick and Five Dead 
Dance to Your Daddy 
A Hearse on May-Day 
Late, Late in the Evening 
Fault in the Structure 
Nest of Vipers

Edward Frederic Benson was born on July 24, 1867 in Berkshire, the son of a future Archbishop of Canterbury, and one of six children. He studied at Kings College, Cambridge and at the British School of Archaeology in Athens. Benson's first book, Dodo, was published to popular acclaim in 1893 and was followed by over a hundred books, including novels, histories, biographies and ghost stories. In 1920 Benson became a full-time tenant of Lamb House in Rye, which had once been home to the novelist Henry James. Rye provided the setting for the Mapp and Lucia stories and their author served three terms as mayor of Rye in the late 1930s. E.F. Benson died on February 29, 1940.

The Blotting Book

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E F Benson

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