The first volume of E.F. Benson's wildly satirical take on the Edwardian English upper class. The books were recently adapted by the BBC into a mini-series starring Sherlock's Mark Gatiss.
Emmeline Lucas, Lucia, to her friends, is a determined social climber, determined to rise to the top of the town of Riseholme, a little one-street village inhabited by a strange group of the idle rich. The result is a mish-mash of petty schemes, gossip, and backstabbing the likes of which Riseholme has never seen.
