E. F. Benson
London: Elkin Mathews & Marrot, 1929.

The Male Impersonator is one of two short stories and six novels published in the author’s Mapp and Lucia series, later adapted as a television serial. The series features a cast of mainly upper class English people, who could be described as genteel dilettantes, as they navigate their way through the minor outrages of polite society. In The Male Impersonator, Miss Mapp has to deal with the arrival to their small town of Lady Deal, who in a previous life, had a history of performing as a male impersonator. ‘To think that a male impersonator should to Tilling and take one of the best houses in the place! Why, it might as well have remained empty!’ Limited to 530 numbered copies, this being one of 30 copies for presentation, signed by the author.