Reviews for Dressing up

The average rating for Dressing up based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-01-02 00:00:00 Lin Maxwell Some sort of attempt to sell fans of Benson's "Lucia" on his other short fiction. Of the two presumptively lost and rediscovered stories here, the title one is a lightly reworked episode, perhaps an earlier draft, of a chapter in one of the books - so no real revelations. However, the collection is grouped by Benson's many other styles, all of which were new to me. The "spook" stories of various supernatural happenings were well-crafted and engaging, not that I will seek out any more, and some of his other comedic social commentary, for example on the never outdated topic of dietary and medicinal faddism, is good for several laughs (or at least amused smiles). We can loosely generalize that career short story writers for the many weekly and monthly periodicals of the early 20th century were not-infrequently inspired journeyman writers comparable to the better television writers or our time - a nice glimpse into the entertainment of a century ago.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-05-22 00:00:00 Sarah Childers I really rate this at least 3.5 stars. It is an interesting collection of short stories of E.F. Benson. I have still not fully discovered the works of this man, but was glad to find this collection. The stories have quite a range and were written between the 1890s and 1930s. Most have a very episodic feel and are connected to his longer works. Benson's writing is very sharp and satirical and plainly displays a society that tends toward calm, cool, and even cruel. And honestly one of the best of these, and perhaps not so cruel, is the title story, a Miss Mapp tale.