The Mapp and Lucia novels feature humorous incidents in the lives of (mainly) upper-middle-class British characters in the 1920s and 1930s, many of whom do not work for a living, who vie for social prestige and one-upmanship in an atmosphere of extreme cultural snobbery. Several of them are set in the small seaside town of Tilling, closely based on Rye, East Sussex, where the author Benson lived for a number of years and (like Lucia) served as mayor.