"Mrs. Andrews's Control"from The E.F. Benson Megapack
by E.F. Benson
Synopsis:
A middle-aged couple dabble with the psychical, including automatic writing. (This is more a humorous character study than a tale of horror.)
My Reaction:
The earliest known date of publication for this short story is September 1915. In it, Benson plays with some ideas that he used in his Mapp and Lucia series of novels, which were published between 1920 and 1939.
Devotees of the Mapp and Lucia series will certainly recognize the playful gibes at dieting fads and fashionable "games" of a psychical nature-- specifically crystal-ball-gazing and automatic writing. Benson pokes gentle fun without malice, and it's an amusing few pages.
References to WWI ("the German war") will be of particular interest to history buffs.
