James Joyce was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, but he was not immediately recognised as such; rather he lived in exile in the cosmopolitan Europe of the 1920s in a bid to escape the suffocating atmosphere and parochial prejudices of his native Dublin. His unstinting dedication to authorship picks him out as a writer in the romantic tradition. He battled poverty and financial dependency for much of his adult life, as well as near-blindness from 1917 and the grief of his daughter Lucia's mental illness. He suffered too the slings and arrows of uncomprehending critics especially for his influential Ulysses, which was banned in both Britain and America.
Mrs Lucas is Lucia, Queen of the tiny (but culturally important) village of Riseholme. From her villa she dispenses wisdom, dominates the cultural life and makes pronouncements all all things. She has able lieutenants in her almost invisible husband and Georgie. She is truly a Queen and she acts regally, pompously and somewhat ignorantly which is all good fun for us readers.
