Lucia & Mapp, Two Stories: "Lucia and the Eighth Commandment" and "Humble Soup"

“Lucia and the Eighth Commandment”: Peacetime it may be, but not in England’s quaint town of Tilling, whose residents can count on the ongoing and quite entertaining battle for social ascendancy between Elizabeth Mapp-Flint and Lucia Pillson. When at his wife’s request, Lucia’s husband Georgie borrows Elizabeth’s purportedly valuable and possibly signed edition of The Poetical Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, he counts on the bibulous Major Benjy to relay the message to his wife. Benjy’s failure to carry out his mission sets off the Great Burglary Scare, sparking more excitement than Tilling has seen in some time. “Humble Soup”: What has dampened the fighting spirit of Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, inexplicably cowed by her rival, Lucia Pillson? Fellow Tillingites are horrified when Lucia proposes raising funds for a new Church Hall roof by staging a series of tableaux vivants. Their entire social circle has been impressed into service. Elizabeth has always been counted on to keep Lucia’s worst instincts in check, yet this time that august lady is mum. Now Elizabeth is grimly practicing her choreography and her husband the Major has been compelled to don a frighteningly lifelike donkey’s head. How will the balance of power be restored? Author Tom Holt is the only novelist sanctioned by the estate of E.F. Benson to write the further adventures of Lucia and Mapp.