Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Doran in 1915 in 360 pages; Subjects: Fiction / Anthologies; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Science Fiction / Short Stories; Fiction / Short Stories; ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: J.B. Lippincott Company in 1904 in 363 pages; Subjects: Mathematics / Geometry / General; Mathematics / Topology; ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Doubleday, Page in 1907 in 422 pages; Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General; Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Traditional British; Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Doubleday, Page & Co. in 1908 in 365 pages; Subjects: Fiction / General; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Historical; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Short Stories; ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: J.B. Lippincott in 1906 in 378 pages; Subjects: English fiction; Fiction / General; Fiction / Literary; History / General; ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

[...] and Dated
The best literature is ageless.We still enjoy the period pieces of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, despite the fact that the worlds they described have vanished into the past, because we empathise with the characters and love the writing.

Unfortunately, "The Freaks of Mayfair" by E F Benson is not in that class.The stories in the book were published in 1916. The "freaks" and their attitudes so cuttingly caricatured by Benson would have been completely understood and enjoyed by British audiences probably up to World War 2, by which time the world encapsulated in the stories had largely been swept away.

Today it all seems so dated, with many of the detailed allusions and asides completely lost to modern readers, except, perhaps to British readers who may still be familiar with the Mayfair world of long ago.

Of course, many of the stories can still be enjoyed, because the attitudes Benson pokes fun at still exist and we can make the mental leap from a vanished world to the world of today.Everyone can enjoy taking down a snob, or a social climber, or a worldly cleric, or an elderly person decrying the lamentable standards of modern youth, or parasites who batten (and fatten) on the hospitality of others.Less acceptable today is making fun of the gay.All such stories are in the book.

My main gripe is that Benson works his material too hard.His stories are generally too [...], and, by overdoing it, he alienates the reader (at least this one).Sometimes less is more. Understatement can be just as effective as a megaphone.

There are a few wonderful patches of writing in the book, but the reader has to plough through much dross before uncovering the gems.

Mayfair Bestiary
Benson fans should rejoice in this release which chronicles the "freaks"--strange fauna--who haunt the fashionable drawing rooms of the Mayfair microcosm of Edwardian Society.As a collection of "entries", the style does not require a sustained plot--so don't expect one.Benson chose a form that allowed for publication in the satirical magazines of the day and each entry has its share of droll wit.

I bought the book specifically for the "Aunt Georgie" piece, suspecting that it would prefigure the character who became Georgie Pilson.I had hoped for a really early look at how Georgie hired Foljambe, his peerless parlor maid/caregiver.This is not the case:Aunt Georgie is the wealthy head of a "good" British family with plenty of sisters and so on to support and a large house in the country where he houses his dependent relatives.He has "serious" interests in poetry and music but is not the artist that Benson makes of his "immortal" Georgie.Read the book to learn more...but rejoice also that Benson later developed Georgie Pilson.

In other chapters, Benson goes on to lampoon the social fads of his day, familiar to readers of the "Riseholm" period of his Lucia books:Yoga, Spiritualism, Christian Science Healing, Vegan lifestyles and so forth.Of course he chronicles a typology of "climbers", finding room for chapters on "verticle" ones and "horizontal" ones.Not one prefigures the highly developed skills Lucia displays in her social mountaineering but they make for a cozy evening read--perhaps at bedtime, just before dropping off.

This book is well worth buying.

for Benson diehards only.
This is a series of short character sketches; social climbers, cats, snobs, faddists.They are very well-wrought.There is information on "grizzly kittens" --those that keep on acting like young things--frolicking & using old, out-of-date slang when well past their prime;several chapters on the important differences between vertical and horizontal social climbing, and how it is done; some cold words about gossiping and what an absolute waste it can be...twelve or so outlines of people and who they are and what they do.

There is no plot, no story--just sketches of "types" that you might find in upper-class London at the end of the Edwardian era.

Perceptive, thoughtful, intentionally a little cruel; these are certainly good essays and the illustrations by George Plank, which were contemporaneous with the pieces are appropriate, if a little bizarre (take an Aubrey Beardsley drawing and make the figures middle-aged and stocky).


These short pieces strike me as a novelist's workbook; he plans to use this character or that one some day in a "real" book--and meantime they were polished up a bit for publication...

I certainly enjoyed reading this book; but would not recommend it to someone who's never read this author before.
I would tend to say start with "Secret Lives" and the Mapp and Lucia novels; and if you are crazy about them (which I was), then FREAKS OF MAYFAIR will give you some insight into what sort of world Benson pulled the characters in those books from...
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Customer Reviews (1)

A Victoria melodrama, not social satire like Ms. Mapp.
Daisy is a lovely, young society girl, outgoing and popular with men.She has just decided to accept the (obviously) approaching offer of marriage from one titled beaux, and she is the envy of all at making such a suitable match.

Her joy is compounded with the news that her aunt would be arriving home after a year spent traveling abroad to recover from a personal tragedy.Daisy simply adores her aunt, a woman only 10 years older than Daisy but who had taken Daisy in and raised her after the death of her parents.

The aunt arrives in London and learns just to whom Daisy is about to become engage.The aunt is horrified (for reasons unknown to the rest of society) and sets out to prevent the marriage.For silly Victorian reasons, the aunt decides that the best way to accomplish this is to pursue the beaux and make him fall in love with her (the aunt).

The majority of the book is spent on the aunt's various stratagems and justifications of the above action - she is a virtuous and decent woman who is only doing this in the best interest of Daisy.

Overall, this was a Victorian melodrama.If you're looking for social satire or the penetrating wit of Miss Mapp or Queen Lucia (as I was), you won't find it in this story.

It's as if someone else wrote a story and published it under E.F. Benson's name.I gave it 5 stars because it is well written, paced, and plotted for the type of story it is.That I don't particularly care for this type of story is a personal issue that I didn't think should be reflected in the rating.It's not the author's/book's fault that I don't like this genre and would have never downloaded it if there were a plot synopsis available.
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Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of E(dward) F(rederic) Benson, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 2820 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author