The creator of Mapp and Lucia, E.F. Benson (always known as Fred) ranks with P.G. Woodhouse as one of Britain's greatest humourists. He was born into one of the most brillian and emotionally doomed of Victorian families, and it fell to the urbane, kindly and enigmatic Fred to steer parents and siblings through their crises. He took refuge in smart London drawing rooms; in his friendships with Oscar Wilde, Margot Asquith; Marie Corelli and Henry James; in lotus-eating days on Capri; and, always in his writing. This biography makes clear how the follies and well-cloaked oddities of English society, from the days of Victoria to World War II, shaped the story of E.F. Benson's own life as much as they did the plots of his fiction. Brian Masters has also written Camus - A Study, The Dukes, Now Barabbas Was a Rotter: The Extraordinary Life of Marie Corelli, Killing for Company: The Case of Dennis Nilsen, The Passion of John Aspinall, The Swinging Sixties and Gary.