Miss Elizabeth Mapp, magnificent grande dame and heiress, is always on the lookout lest her neighbors fall outside the bounds of perfect, exemplary manners. Opera glasses and notebook in hand, she gazes out her window, ever the vigilant sentinel. But her tightly controlled world is soon beset on all sides by interlopers, first in the disturbingly masculine form of two very different retired army officers—both of whom are anything but retiring in their conflicting aims upon her heart. Second, there appears the elegant, insidiously evil shape of a ravishing Contessa possessed of dazzling charm and diabolical designs. Can Mapp, super-strategist of the drawing room and experienced provocateur of amorous intrigue, overcome all obstacles and be united with the object of her matrimonial desires? Whom could she possibly choose: the solid, traditional Major Flint or the mysteriously attractive Captain Puffin?

This wonderfully humrous satire of British high society introduces one of E. F. Benson's most beloved characters.