Our Family Affairs, 1867-1896

by E F Benson

Overview

E.F. Benson, in full Edward Frederic Benson, (born July 24, 1867, Wellington College, Berkshire, Eng.-died Feb. 29, 1940, London), writer of fiction, reminiscences, and biographies, of which the best remembered are his arch, satirical novels and his urbane autobiographical studies of Edwardian and Georgian society.

The son of E.W. Benson, an archbishop of Canterbury (1883-96), the young Benson was educated at Marlborough School and at King's College, Cambridge. After graduation he worked from 1892 to 1895 in Athens for the British School of Archaeology 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-such as Mrs. Ames (1912), Queen Lucia (1920), Miss Mapp (1922), and Lucia in London (1927)-and books on a wide range of subjects, totaling nearly 100. Among them were biographies of Queen Victoria, William Gladstone, and William II of Germany. In 1938 he was made an honorary fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Benson's reminiscences include As We Were (1930), As We Are (1932), and Final Edition (1940). (britannica.com)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636373553
Publisher:	Bibliotech Press
Publication date:	11/11/2022
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.63(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER H LINCOLN AND EARLY EMOTIONS IN 1873 my father was appointed Chancellor of Lincoln, and the move there was made in the summer of that year, during July and August. We four younger children, Nellie, Maggie, myself and Hugh went with Beth to stay with my grandmother at Rugby while it was in progress. That visit was memorable for several reasons: in the first place I celebrated a birthday there, and great-Aunt Henrietta had no idea that I was long past fairies, for on the morning of that day she met me in the hall, and said she would go out to see if there were any fairies about, for she fancied she had heard them singing. Accordingly she went out of the front door, closing it after her, and leaving me in the hall. Sure enough from the other side of the door there instantly came a crooning kind of noise, which I knew was Aunt Henrietta singing, and there was a rattle in the letter-box in the door of something dropped into it. Aunt Henrietta then returned in considerable excitement, and asked me if I hadn't heard the fairies singing, and of course I said I had. One had come right on to the doorstep, she continued, while she stood there, and had dropped something for me into the letter-box. And there was a velvet purse with a brass clasp, and inside five shillings. This was an opulence hitherto undreamed of. Aunt Henrietta was remarkable in other ways besides generosity:she wore a curious cap with pink blobs on it, and when asked how they were made instantly replied that they were made by coral insects underneath the sea. It was also said of her that she went to church one Sunday with a friend, and found they had only one prayer book, and that with small print, betweenthem. They were both short-sighted and they each pulled so lustily on the prayer book in order to see be...