Decca
Subtitle: the letters of Jessica Mitford
By: edited by Peter Y. Sussman
Contributors: Sussman, Peter Y.
Publisher: Phoenix; Orion Publishing Group, Limited
Published: 2007
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9780753822296
Subjects: Correspondence; Sisters; Upper class women; Social history
Description: "Decca" Mitford lived a large-than-life life: born into the British aristocracy - one of the famous (and sometimes infamous) Mitford sisters - she ran away to Spain during the Spanish Civil War with her cousin Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill's nephew, then came to America, became a tireless political activist and a member of the Communist Party, and embarked on a brilliant career as a memoirist and muckraking journalist (her funeral-industry expose, The American Way of Death, became an instant classic). She was a celebrated wit, a charmer, and throughout her life a prolific and passionate writer of letters - now gathered here. Decca's correspondence crackles with irreverent humor and mischief, and with acute insight into human behavior (and misbehavior) that attests to her generous experience of the worlds of politics, the arts, journalism, publishing, and high and low society. Here is correspondence with everyone from Katharine Graham and George Jackson, Betty Friedan, Miss Manners, Julie Andrews, Maya Angelou, Harry Truman, and Hillary Rodham Clinton to Decca's sisters the Duchess of Devonshire and the novelist Nancy Mitford, her parents, her husbands, her children, and her grandchildren.
Notes: Originally published: London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006.

Includes bibliographical references and index.