"Paying Guests" is one of the last novels of E.F. Benson. The story is set around the Wentworth mention, a small boarding house in Bolton Spa and its owners and lodgers, usual and recognizable Benson's characters. They are quite unlikable, mainly upper-middle-class English people who came to the Spa to cure their body illnesses, but also to fill the time and escape boredom despite having no passions, interests and work. Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer, known professionally as E.F. Benson.