E. F.  (Edward Frederic) Benson (1867-1940) was a prolific novelist, dramatist, short story writer, and biographer. His first novel Dodo did extremely well and helped establish him as a writer. He wrote biographies of Sir Francis Drake, Alcibiades, Ferdinand Magellan, Queen Victoria, and Charlotte Bronte, and a curious instruction manual on figure skating. His devoted following has been building over seventy years due to the popularity of the exquisite “Mapp & Lucia” stories contained in six novels and two short stories. The son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a bit eccentric, he studied archaeogloy at Kings College, Cambridge, and served as Mayor of Rye near the end of his life.