Masterpiece Theatre | Love in a Cold Climate | Essays + Interviews | The Mitford Sisters The Mitford Sisters Raised in isolation on several Cotswold estates, the seven children of Lord and Lady Redesdale -- six daughters and a son -- were forced to depend on each other for ideas, companionship, and fun. They invented elaborate family jokes and games that included an elaborate network of nicknames and private languages. By the time Tom was at Eton and the girls ready for their London debuts, they had each developed their own highly individual, eccentric personalities. Coming of age in the era of Evelyn Waugh's fabled "Bright Young Things," the Mitford children burned bright only to flame out in a series of unwise alliances, outspoken books, and poorly chosen political bedfellows. Nancy, The Author The eldest of the seven children of David Mitford and Sydney Bowles, Nancy was born in London in 1904. Because her father did not believe in formal education for girls, Nancy and her sisters were instructed at home by governesses.

(One reason he gave was that by playing field hockey, a common school sport, they would develop thick calves.) Both Nancy and Jessica longed to go to school, and at age 16 Nancy got her wish, spending less than a year at nearby Hatherop Castle. By and large, school did not play a large part in her childhood. Books, however, did. By age six, Nancy was already reading Ivanhoe, and she went on to read voraciously throughout her teenage years. The strict house rules about books -- children were not allowed to read in bed or to read novels in the morning, and library books had to stay in the library -- made reading, especially the reading of novels, all the more attractive. Nancy's own first novel, Highland Fling, was published in 1931, followed by Christmas Pudding the next year. But critics and the public took little notice of these frothy romps. She found success with her fifth novel, The Pursuit of Love (1945), and its sequel, Love in a Cold Climate (1949).

Based like much of her fiction on her own experiences, their sentimental but satiric tone was irresistible to a nation fatigued by years of war, and the books became best-sellers. Known for her style and elegance, Nancy was a great social success, as were her sisters in their turn. As a young woman in London, she worked away at her fiction and penned articles for Vogue, The Lady, and Harper's. Released at last from the family fold, she took up residence with the author Evelyn Waugh and his wife and enjoyed a lively social life. Her first love was Hamish St. Clair Erskine, an aesthete who had been friends with her brother at Eton. When he threw her over, she quickly married Peter Rodd, son of an eminent diplomat, chiefly because he happened to be available. Undone by his philandering and profligate spending habits, the match was never happy; they would divorce in 1958. With her husband posted overseas during the war, Nancy found work as an assistant at Heywood Hill bookshop in the Mayfair district of London, where she soon became a partner in the firm.

Drawing on her work with Rodd in refugee camps during the Spanish Civil War, Nancy did her part in the war effort as an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) driver in London. By this time, Nancy had fallen in love with Gaston Palewski, a follower of General de Gaulle, who she included as Fabrice in The Pursuit of Love. Settling in Paris after the war, she moved from fiction to history, writing highly acclaimed biographies: Madame de Pompadour (1953), Voltaire in Love (1957), The Sun King (1966), and Frederick the Great (1970). She is remembered, however, as Britain's most piercing observer of social manners. While her sheltered upbringing was the object of her scalding satire, she nonetheless continued to defend it until her death in Paris, of cancer, at the age of 69. Pamela, The "Woman" Sister number two, Pamela (1907-1994), was the least rebellious of the older girls. Of all the sisters, Pamela developed a particular love of the country and went on to become a poultry expert. According to Mitford biographer Mary S.

Lovell, for Pam the country "... was not just a 'nice place to live,' she felt a positive affinity with farming and animals.... It was her undisguised enjoyment of domesticated pursuits such as cooking, which the others regarded as boring and 'womanly,' that led to her lifelong nickname in the family, Woman, sometimes shorted to Woo." Known as the "quiet sister," she nonetheless attracted her share of suitors, and in 1936 she fell for Derek Ainslie Jackson, the good-looking son of Sir Charles Jackson and a world-renowned physicist in his own right. After divorcing his first wife, he married her that December. Pam and Derek would take in Diana's two boys when she and her second husband, Oswald Mosley, were jailed for treason. Tom, The Boy Tom (1909-1945), the only Mitford son, became a lawyer with a passion for music. As a youngster, he participated with the girls in schoolroom lessons at home, where he was taught Latin and math, subjects essential for his admission to boarding school and that were thought necessary for the girls.

At the age of nine, he was sent to a preparatory school, which eventually lead to his enrollment at Eton. Although not often at home, Tom played an important role in the education of his sisters, as he brought them a glimpse of the wider world. After Eton, Tom went on to study German and music in Vienna. He loved Germany and everything about it. Although he was not known to be anti-Semitic, he was impressed by Hitler when he met him, as were both his parents when they visited Berlin. In the end, however, he fought for England in World War II and was killed in Burma in April 1945. When the news came through, Diana was granted leave from prison, and the family gathered together in their London house to comfort each other. David would never recover from the loss of his only son. Diana, The Beautiful One The third sister, Diana (1910-), was always considered the most classically beautiful. She ended her first season as a debutante by becoming engaged to Bryan Guinness, heir to the fabulous Guinness Brewery fortune and one of the most eligible bachelors of the day. Several years and two sons later, she caused a scandal by divorcing him.

Evidently theirs was a less-than-ideal marriage. They had only known each other three months when he proposed. Bryan mistook her for a fresh country girl while Diana had jumped into marriage to escape from her family. Truth be told, Diana was love with Sir Oswald Mosley. Leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and its "defense force" of thuggish Blackshirts, Mosley was a sinister character, but also something of a buffoon. He may be best known as the model for P. G. Wodehouse's immortal character Sir Roderick Spode, leader of a fascist organization called the Black Shorts. Mosley was also lampooned by Nancy in her farcical novel Wigs on the Green (1935). More disturbing to her friends and relatives than Mosley's politics was the fact that Diana was divorcing one man in order to live as the mistress of another. When Mosley's wife died unexpectedly, he and Diana wed. During their life together, they shared the same beliefs, campaigned together, and suffered the ignominy of being imprisoned together by the British government as German sympathizers during World War II.

Nancy had informed on her sister, while Jessica never forgave Diana for her fascist views. Unity, The Fascist As girls in the 1930s, Jessica and Unity (1914-1948) shared a room. One end was decorated with Unity's fascist insignia, while at the other end Jessica displayed her communist library, copies of the Daily Worker, and a small bust of Lenin. The rest of the family regarded this ideological war as an amusing childish game rather than as an early sign of the division the family would face in the future. Rather boisterous as a teenager, Unity tormented the family's governesses and was expelled after a brief stint at school. At home she practiced the art of sitting silently at meals and fixing her father in a stare until he exploded with irritation. Later, as a debutante, she horrified the London social scene by taking her pet rat to dances and wearing a flamboyantly fake tiara. She so enjoyed herself and amused her sisters that later, when she greeted everyone with the Nazi salute, they regarded it for a time as another one of her pranks. Unity Mitford's admiration for Hitler is well known.

She liked the spectacle -- the oratory, uniform, marching, and music. As it did for so many young people in Germany, the pomp gave her a sense of identity, of belonging to something important. For his part, Hitler saw Unity as a perfect example of Aryan womanhood, and her connections with important people in English society were obviously useful. She became a member of his social circle, drawing Diana into it as well. Early in 1936, Diana married Mosley while staying with Unity at the Goebbels' house outside Berlin. When World War II came, Unity was so appalled at the idea of her country being at war with Germany that she tried to commit suicide by shooting herself in the head. Although Hitler got her to the hospital and she recovered enough to be taken back to England, she was a semi-invalid for the rest of her days. Jessica, The Communist Jessica, or "Decca" (1917-1996), was the sister who least enjoyed her upbringing. As a young girl, she had a "running-away account"; she had a habit of saving up her pocket money, frequently informing her family that she would soon have enough to escape.

Even her short education in Paris and her first London season left her feeling at odds with her family background. She was looking for a way out when she engineered a meeting with Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill's 19-year-old "red" nephew who had run away from school to join the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. He was her soul mate and hero, and Jessica eventually joined him in Spain, where they were married. (Although Nancy sympathized with Jessica in her love for Edmond, she advised her not to run off to Spain with him.) Throughout their time together, they shared a passionate commitment to communism. When he was killed in World War II, shot down by Germans over the North Sea, Jessica was crushed. She emigrated to the United States (later marrying progressive Oakland lawyer Robert Treuhaft) and began a series of written attacks on the establishment, most famously her scathing indictment of the funeral industry in her book The American Way of Death. Deborah, The Duchess As the youngest, Deborah, or "Debo" (1920--), was less energetically competitive than her siblings. Nancy called Debo "Nine" until she married, saying it was her mental age.

She took advantage of Debo's sentimental nature by writing poems and stories to make her cry, one of which appears in Masterpiece Theatre's Love in a Cold Climate: "A little houseless match/It has no roof, no thatch/It lies alone, it makes no moan/That little houseless match." Eventually, Nancy had only to hold up a box of matches to make tears well in Debo's eyes. Much like Diana, Debo found her match shortly after coming out to London society. She'd met Andrew Cavendish, younger son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire, in a restaurant off Curzon Street. "If it wasn't love at first sight, it was certainly attraction at first sight," he later reported. They became engaged in 1939 but kept their pledge secret, as, at age 19, they were considered too young to marry. They made it official the following April amid the bombed-out remains of the family's London home at 26 Rutland Gate.

When Deborah's brother-in-law Billy (husband of Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, sister to Jack, Bobby, and Ted) was hit by a sniper on the Belgian front, Andrew became heir to the dukedom, including the neglected family estate Chatsworth. Restoring and preserving this heirloom home would soon become their mission. Debo even joined the ranks of her published sisters, authoring The House, part autobiography, part history of Chatsworth, and a follow-up, The Estate. In addition to consulting on Masterpiece Theatre's Love in a Cold Climate, Debo has jealously guarded the memory of her older, if not wiser, sisters, endeavoring to block unflattering and unauthorized biographies. As a result of their social and political exploits, the Mitfords captured the British media spotlight, dominating the front pages of splashy tabloids -- a public fascination that continues to this day, as new biographies try to reveal what kept these siblings burning bright. Nancy Mitford (Author of The Pursuit of Love) edit data Nancy Mitford, CBE (28 November 1904, London – 30 June 1973, Versailles), styled The Hon.

Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years. She was born at 1 Graham Street (now Graham Place) in Belgravia, London, the eldest daughter of Lord Redesdale and was brought up at Asthall Manor in Oxfordshire. She was the eldest of the six controversial Mitford sisters. She is best remembered for her series of novels about upper-class life in England and France, particularly the four published after 1945; but she also wrote four well-received, well-researched popular biographies (of Louis XIV, Madame de Pom Nancy Mitford, CBE (28 November 1904, London – 30 June 1973, Versailles), styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years.

She was born at 1 Graham Street (now Graham Place) in Belgravia, London, the eldest daughter of Lord Redesdale and was brought up at Asthall Manor in Oxfordshire. She was the eldest of the six controversial Mitford sisters. She is best remembered for her series of novels about upper-class life in England and France, particularly the four published after 1945; but she also wrote four well-received, well-researched popular biographies (of Louis XIV, Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, and Frederick the Great). She was one of the noted Mitford sisters and the first to publicise the extraordinary family life of her very English and very eccentric family, giving rise to a "Mitford industry" which continues.

Her Published Works: A Talent to Annoy; Essays, Journalism and Reviews 1929–1968 edited by Charlotte Mosley (1986) Collections of Letters: Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford edited by Charlotte Mosley (1993) The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh edited by Charlotte Mosley (1996) The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street: Letters between Nancy Mitford and Heywood Hill 1952–73 edited by John Saumarez Smith (2004) The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosley (2007) Works as Editor: The Ladies of Alderley: Letters 1841–1850 (1938) The Stanleys of Alderley: Their letters 1851–1865 (1939) (Mitford edited these two volumes of letters, written by the family of her great-grandparents, Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley and his wife Henrietta Maria, daughter of the 13th Viscount Dillon).

Noblesse Oblige (1956) Nancy Mitford | Penguin Books Australia books Nancy Mitford was born in London on November 28 1904, daughter of the second Baron Redesdale, and the eldest of six girls. Her sisters included Lady Diana Mosley; Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire and Jessica, who immortalised the Mitford family in her autobiography Hons and Rebels. The Mitford sisters came of age during the Roaring Twenties and wartime in London, and were well known for their beauty, upper-class bohemianism or political allegiances. Nancy contributed columns to The Lady and the Sunday Times, as well as writing a series of popular novels including The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, which detailed the high-society affairs of the six Radlett sisters. While working in London during the Blitz, Nancy met and fell in love with Gaston Palewski, General de Gaulle's chief of staff, and eventually moved to Paris to be near him. In the 1950s she began writing historical biographies - her life of Louis XIV, The Sun King, became an international bestseller.

Nancy completed her last book, Frederick the Great, before she died of Hodgkin's disease on 30 June 1973. Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) was born in London, the eldest child of the second Baron Redesdale. Her childhood in a large, remote country house with her five sisters and one brother is recounted in the early chapters of The Pursuit of Love (1945), which, according to Mitford, is largely autobiographical. Apart from being taught to ride and speak French, Nancy Mitford always claimed she never received a proper education. She started writing before her marriage in 1932 in order 'to relieve the boredom of the intervals between recreations established by the social conventions of her world' and had written four novels before the success of The Pursuit of Love in 1945. After the war she moved to Paris and she spent the rest of her life in France. She followed The Pursuit of Love with Love in a Cold Climate (1949), The Blessing (1951) and Don't Tell Alfred (1960).

She also wrote four works of biography: Madame de Pompadour, first published to great acclaim in 1954, Voltaire in Love, The Sun King and Frederick the Great. As well as being a novelist and biographer she also translated Madame de Lafayette's classic novel, La Princesse de Cléves, into English, and edited Noblesse Oblige, a collection of essays concerned with the behaviour of the English aristocracy and the idea of 'U' and 'non-U'. Nancy Mitford was awarded the CBE in 1972. Nancy Mitford | Penguin Books New Zealand books Nancy Mitford was born in London on November 28 1904, daughter of the second Baron Redesdale, and the eldest of six girls. Her sisters included Lady Diana Mosley; Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire and Jessica, who immortalised the Mitford family in her autobiography Hons and Rebels. The Mitford sisters came of age during the Roaring Twenties and wartime in London, and were well known for their beauty, upper-class bohemianism or political allegiances.

Nancy contributed columns to The Lady and the Sunday Times, as well as writing a series of popular novels including The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, which detailed the high-society affairs of the six Radlett sisters. While working in London during the Blitz, Nancy met and fell in love with Gaston Palewski, General de Gaulle's chief of staff, and eventually moved to Paris to be near him. In the 1950s she began writing historical biographies - her life of Louis XIV, The Sun King, became an international bestseller. Nancy completed her last book, Frederick the Great, before she died of Hodgkin's disease on 30 June 1973. Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) was born in London, the eldest child of the second Baron Redesdale. Her childhood in a large, remote country house with her five sisters and one brother is recounted in the early chapters of The Pursuit of Love (1945), which, according to Mitford, is largely autobiographical. Apart from being taught to ride and speak French, Nancy Mitford always claimed she never received a proper education.

She started writing before her marriage in 1932 in order 'to relieve the boredom of the intervals between recreations established by the social conventions of her world' and had written four novels before the success of The Pursuit of Love in 1945. After the war she moved to Paris and she spent the rest of her life in France. She followed The Pursuit of Love with Love in a Cold Climate (1949), The Blessing (1951) and Don't Tell Alfred (1960). She also wrote four works of biography: Madame de Pompadour, first published to great acclaim in 1954, Voltaire in Love, The Sun King and Frederick the Great. As well as being a novelist and biographer she also translated Madame de Lafayette's classic novel, La Princesse de Cléves, into English, and edited Noblesse Oblige, a collection of essays concerned with the behaviour of the English aristocracy and the idea of 'U' and 'non-U'. Nancy Mitford was awarded the CBE in 1972.

Nancy Mitford Nancy Mitford Nancy Mitford (and others) Love in a Cold Climate is the sequel to Nancy Mitford's bestselling novel The Pursuit of Love. 'How lovely - green velvet and silver. I call that a dream, so soft and delicious, too.' She rubbed a fold of the skirt against her cheek. 'Mine's silver lame, it smells like a bird cage when it gets hot but I do love it. Aren't you thankful evening skirts are long again?' Ah, the dresses! But oh, the monotony of the Season, with its endless run of glittering balls. Even fabulously fashionable Polly Hampton - with her startling good looks and excellent social connections - is beginning to wilt under the glare. Groomed for the perfect marriage by her mother, fearsome Lady Montdore, Polly instead scandalises society by declaring her love for her uncle 'Boy' Dougdale, the Lecherous Lecturer, and promptly eloping to France. But the consequences of this union no one could quite expect . . . Love in a Cold Climate is the wickedly funny follow-up to The Pursuit of Love.

'Entirely original, inimitable and irresistible' Philip Hensher, Spectator Nancy Mitford (and others) Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love is one of the funniest, sharpest novels about love and growing up ever written. 'Obsessed with sex!' said Jassy, 'there's nobody so obsessed as you, Linda. Why if I so much as look at a picture you say I'm a pygmalionist.' In the end we got more information out of a book called Ducks and Duck Breeding. 'Ducks can only copulate,' said Linda, after studying this for a while, 'in running water. Good luck to them.' Oh, the tedium of waiting to grow up! Longing for love, obsessed with weddings and sex, Linda and her sisters and cousin Fanny are on the lookout for the perfect lover. But finding Mr Right is much harder than any of the sisters had thought. Linda must suffer marriage first to a stuffy Tory MP and then to a handsome and humourless communist, before finding real love in war-torn Paris. . . 'Utter, utter bliss' Daily Mail Nancy Mitford The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford.

Here in one volume are all eight of Nancy Mitford's sparklingly astute, hilarious and completely unputdownable novels: Highland Fling, Christmas Pudding, Wigs on the Green, Pigeon Pie, The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate, The Blessing and Don't Tell Alfred. Published over a period of 30 years, they provide a wonderful glimpse of the bright young things of the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties in the city and in the shires; firmly ensconced at home or making a go of it abroad; and what the upper classes really got up to in peace and in war. 'Entirely original, inimitable and irresistible' Spectator 'Deliciously funny' Evelyn Waugh Nancy Mitford (and others) Don't Tell Alfred is the wickedly funny sequel to Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. 'I believe it would have been normal for me to have paid a visit to the outgoing ambassadress.

However the said ambassadress had set up such an uninhibited wail when she knew she was to leave, proclaiming her misery to all and sundry and refusing so furiously to look on the bright side, that it was felt she might not be very nice to me.' Fanny is married to absent-minded Oxford don Alfred and content with her role as a plain, tweedy housewife. But overnight her life changes when Alfred is appointed English Ambassador to Paris. In the blink of an eye, Fanny's mixing with royalty, Rothschilds and Dior-clad wives, throwing cocktail parties and having every indiscreet remark printed in tomorrow's papers. But with the love lives of her new friends to organize, an aristocratic squatter who won't budge and the antics of her maverick sons to thwart, Fanny's far too busy to worry about the diplomatic crisis looming on the horizon. . . Don't Tell Alfred continues the histories of the characters Nancy Mitford introduced in The Pursuit of Love.

'A comic genius' Independent on Sunday 'Deliciously funny' Evelyn Waugh Nancy Mitford (and others) The Blessing by Nancy Mitford It isn't just Nanny who finds it difficult in France when Grace and her young son Sigi are finally able to join her dashing aristocratic husband Charles-Edouard after the war. For Grace is out of her depth among the fashionably dressed and immaculately coiffured French women, and shocked by their relentless gossiping and bedhopping. When she discovers her husband's tendency to lust after every pretty girl he sees, it looks like trouble. And things get even more complicated when little Sigi steps in . . . The Blessing is a hilarious tale of love, fidelity, and the English abroad, tailored as brilliantly as a New Look Dior suit. 'Entirely original, inimitable and irresistible' Spectator 'Deliciously funny' Evelyn Waugh Nancy Mitford Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford is a hilarious satire of the upper classes.

Eugenia Malmains is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of Captain Jack and the Union Jackshirts; Noel and Jasper are both in search of an heiress (so much easier than trying to work for the money); Poppy and Marjorie are nursing lovelorn hearts; and the beautiful bourgeois Mrs Lace is on the prowl for someone near Eugenia's fabulous country home at Chalford, and much farce ensues. One of Nancy Mitford's earliest novels, Wigs on the Green has been out of print for nearly seventy-five years. Nancy's sisters Unity and Diana were furious with her for making fun of Diana's husband, Oswald Moseley, and his politics, and the book caused a rift between them all that endured for years. Nancy Mitford skewers her family and their beliefs with her customary jewelled barbs, but there is froth, comedy and heart here too. 'Deliciously funny' Evelyn Waugh Nancy Mitford The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford, with an introduction by India Knight.

In print together for the first time in many years, and here in one volume, are all eight of Nancy Mitford's sparklingly astute, hilarious and completely unputdownable novels, with a new introduction by India Knight. Published over a period of 30 years, they provide a wonderful glimpse of the bright young things of the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties in the city and in the shires; firmly ensconced at home or making a go of it abroad; and what the upper classes really got up to in peace and in war. 'Entirely original, inimitable and irresistible' Spectator 'Deliciously funny' Evelyn Waugh 'Utter, utter bliss' Daily Mail Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) was born in London, the eldest child of the second Baron Redesdale. Her childhood in a large remote country house with her five sisters and one brother is recounted in the early chapters of The Pursuit of Love (1945), which according to the author, is largely autobiographical. Apart from being taught to ride and speak French, Nancy Mitford always claimed she never received a proper education.

She started writing before her marriage in 1932 in order 'to relieve the boredom of the intervals between the recreations established by the social conventions of her world' and had written four novels, including Wigs on the Green (1935), before the success of The Pursuit of Love in 1945. After the war she moved to Paris where she lived for the rest of her life. She followed The Pursuit of Love with Love in a Cold Climate (1949), The Blessing (1951) and Don't Tell Alfred (1960). She also wrote four works of biography: Madame de Pompadour, first published to great acclaim in 1954, Voltaire in Love, The Sun King and Frederick the Great. As well as being a novelist and a biographer she also translated Madame de Lafayette's classic novel, La Princesse de Clèves, into English, and edited Noblesse Oblige, a collection of essays concerned with the behaviour of the English aristocracy and the idea of 'U' and 'non-U'. Nancy Mitford was awarded the CBE in 1972.

Nancy Mitford (and others) WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY KATE WILLIAMS Frederick II of Prussia attempted to escape his authoritarian father as a boy, but went on to become one of history's greatest rulers. He loved the flute, and devoted hours of study to the arts and French literature, forming a long-lasting but turbulent friendship with Voltaire. He was a military genius and enlarged the borders of his empire, but he also promoted religious tolerance, economic reform and laid the foundation for a united Germany. Nancy Mitford brings all these contradictions and achievements to sparkling life in an fascinating, intimate biography. Nancy Mitford Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels casts a finely gauged net to capture perfectly the foibles and fancies of the English upper class, and includes an introduction by Philip Hensher in Penguin Modern Classics. Nancy Mitford's brilliantly witty, irreverent stories of the upper classes in pre-war London and Paris conjure up a world of glamour, gossip and decadence.

In The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate and The Blessing, her extraordinary heroines deal with armies of hilariously eccentric relatives, the excitement of love and passion, and the thrills of the social Season. But beneath the glittering surfaces and perfectly timed comic dialogue, Nancy Mitford's novels are also touching hymns to a lost era and to the brevity of life and love from one of the most individual, beguiling and creative users of the language. Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) was born in London. A member of one of the aristocracy's more eccentric families, and educated at home with a clutch of siblings, Mitford used childhood experience, lightly fictionalised, in her comic novels, including The Pursuit of Love (1945). She also wrote biographies, translated from the French and edited a celebrated symposium on English Aristocrats. If you enjoyed Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels, you might like Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Very funny ... inimitable and irresistible ...

one of the most individual, beguiling and creative users of English this century' Philip Hensher ﻿List of the 6 Mitford Sisters - History Lists HISTORY LISTS You are here: History Lists · People · List of the 6 Mitford Sisters List of the 6 Mitford Sisters Also known as the Mitford girls, the 6 Mitford sisters were highly controversial daughters of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale (1878-1958) and his wife Sydney Bowles (1880-1963). Their eccentric lifestyles, ideas and in particular, their political views and activities attracted a lot of attention of the British public that was both shocked and inspired by one of the most famous and talked about families of the 20th century. Nancy (1904-1973) Nancy was the oldest of the Mitford sisters. She was a very popular novelist and biographer who, however, is best remembered for the controversial concept of the so-called “U” and “Non-U” English. According to the latter, there is a distinction between the vocabulary of the upper (“U”) and non-upper (“Non-U”) classes.

Even though Nancy didn’t “invent” the concept and allegedly used it in her essay The English Aristocracy only as a joke, she angered a lot of people who took the issue to heart. The essay which first appeared in the Encounter magazine in 1954 was also included in the book Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy (1956). Other notable works by the oldest of the Mitford girls include The Pursuit of Love (1945), Love in a Cold Climate (1949) and Don’t Tell Alfred (1960). Pamela (1907-1994) Known to the public as the “Quiet Mitford”, Pamela was relatively uninteresting the tabloids. In comparison to her sisters, she lived a very quiet life. She took the traditional “female tasks” such as housekeeping very seriously which is why her sister Nancy liked to call her “Woman”. However, her life was everything but boring. She had quite a few adventures while traveling around Europe with her Morris Minor and was one of the first female passengers on a transatlantic commercial flight.

Also, the “Quiet Mitford” was married to the extraordinary physicist Derek Jackson (1906-1982) who was quite extraordinary in his personal life as well. In 1951, however, she divorced Jackson and spent the rest of her life with her female companion Giuditta Tommasi. Despite the rumors that she was lesbian, it seems that her relationship with Tommasi didn’t go beyond friendship. Diana (1910-2003) At one time one the most hated women in Britain, Diana wasn’t only despised by the public but she also raised red flags with the British authorities. During World War II, she was even imprisoned as a threat to her country. In 1936, Diana left her wealthy husband Bryan Walter Guinness (1905-1992) for the leader of the British Fascists, Sir Oswald Mosley (1896-1980) whom she married in the same year at the home of Joseph Goebbels in Berlin. First jailed at the Holloway Prison and then placed under house arrest, Diana and her husband were released after the end of the war.

Shortly thereafter, they moved to Paris where they lived until the rest of their lives. Neither Diana nor her husband ever apologized or expressed any regret for their fascist political views and connections with the Nazis including Hitler personally. Unity (1914-1948) Another Mitford girl who became infamous for her links to Fascism and Nazism, Unity or “Bobo”, as she was called by her sisters, tried to commit suicide when Britain declared war on Germany. A passionate admirer of Hitler who described the day she met the Nazi leader as the most beautiful in her life, she supposedly couldn’t bear the thought of the two countries taking up arms against each other. “Bobo”, who was at the time of the British declaration of war on Germany in Munich, took a pistol and shot herself in the head. She survived the suicide attempt but never fully recovered. She died in 1948 from cerebral swelling that developed around the bullet that remained in her head from that day. Jessica (1917-1996) Even though she shared a room with Unity, Jessica or “Decca”, as she was called by her family and friends, didn’t share her fascination with Nazism.

On the contrary, she was a committed Communist. When she was only 19, she eloped to Spain with Winston Churchill’s nephew Esmond Romilly (1918-1941) who, just like her, was an avid Communist. Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, they emigrated to America but Esmond soon volunteered to the Royal Canadian Air Force and got killed in action in 1941. “Decca” remarried two years later with the American lawyer Robert Treuhaft (1912-2001). Until 1958, both were active members of the Communist Party USA. Besides for her radical-left political views and activities, “Decca” is also remembered as the author of several best-selling books, with the most famous being Hons and Rebels (1960) and The American Way of Death (1963). Deborah (1920-2014) Also known as “Debo”, Deborah was the youngest of the Mitford girls.

She was married to Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire (1920-2004) who was very active in politics, serving as Mayor of Buxton (1952-54), Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (1960-62) and Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations (1962-64). But unlike her husband and her older sisters, “Debo” wasn’t interested in politics although she knew many high ranking politicians including Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy. She once also had tea with Hitler but according to her later accounts, she wasn’t impressed. In her later life, “Debo” wrote several books including the autobiography Wait For Me! Memoirs of the Youngest Mitford Sister (2010), telling her side of the story about her siblings and other interesting people she had met over the years.

The Evil Style Queen: The Mitford Sisters The Evil Style Queen Misanthropic views on this and that from the deepest German backwaters "I have a crown and a headscarf and no hangups about wearing either!" Friday, January 11, 2008 The Mitford Sisters Here I give you a whiff of the six Mitford sisters, five of which came to either prominence or notoriety and thus became part of 20th century history: The parents of the Mitford sisters, David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale and his wife Sydney Bowles, were described as handsome, eccentric, cold and remote. The Mitford children (six girls and a boy) grew up in relatively moderate circumstances deep in rural Oxfordshire. The parents didn't believe in education for girls, specifically not in formal schools. Lady Redesdale run a chicken farm, the return of which was duly invested in her daughters' scant education. The children were brought up by a nanny who, as it happens so often in English upper-class families, provided their only stability and warmth. A string of hapless governesses was employed to convey what little knowledge the parents thought girls needed.

Contact with other children was very limited because Lord and Lady Redesdale were of the opinion that this might overexcite the girls. According to Jessica Mitford, Lord Redesdale wouldn't receive any "outsiders" such as "Huns", "Frogs", Americans, Africans and any other "foreigners", which included other people's children, most friends of the girls and almost all young men. An exception was made for some (but by no means all) relatives and some choice red-faced and tweed-clad neighbours. This cruel and eccentric environment was mirrored by the girls from an early age. Merciless bullying among them was rampant, an "art" at which specifically the oldest sister Nancy excelled, a precocious sign of her later whip-lash tongue, for which she became famous as a writer. The parents split up after more than 35 years of marriage over the crucial question whether Adolf Hitler would be welcome as a son-in-law and whether a German invasion was appreciated or not. Lord Redesdale was against, his wife all for it.

Exasperated, he left her and moved to the tiny Scottish island of Inch Kenneth near Mull, about the only bit of estate that had remained in the family, and from where he returned only after the war. Nancy (1904 – 1973), the first born, became a celebrated writer, biographer and novelist. No lesser co-brain than Evelyn Waugh called her "an agitator - agitatrix, agitateuse? - of genius". Nancy and Peter Rodd's wedding. Her best known novels are the autobiographical The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949). I specifically enjoyed The Blessing (1951), in which the devious child of a broken-down Anglo-French aristocratic marriage plots to prevent a reconciliation between his parents, which convincingly undermines the politically correct belief that children are little innocents who never recognise that their bread is sometimes more thickly buttered on the separation side. Nancy's famous line (I quote from memory): "I like children. Specifically when the cry, because then somebody comes and takes them away" fits this bill perfectly.

She edited the extremely witty and funny Noblesse Oblige (1956), a delightfully eccentric analysis of aristocracy, Englishness and language. Here, she famously helped to originate the famous 'U', or upper-class, and 'non-U' classification of linguistic usage and behaviour, all with an amusing tongue-in-cheek twist. Nancy 1969. In private matters she was less successful. In 1933, after a long but doomed engagement to homosexual Scottish aristocrat Hamish St Clair-Erskine, whom, so she erroneously thought, she would be able to lead to and keep on the straight and narrow, she married The Hon. Peter Rodd, the youngest son of the 1st Baron Rennell. The marriage to the cold and self-centred Rodd was not a success. Nancy and Peter Rodd, then separated for many years, divorced in 1958. At the end of WWII, Nancy moved to Paris, partly to be near French soldier and politician Colonel Gaston Palewski (Charles de Gaulle's Chief of Staff), with whom she had had an affair in London during the war.

The largely one-sided thing lasted fitfully and ended unhappily when Palewski married somebody else in 1969. Nancy Mitford died of Leukaemia in 1973. The second Mitford child was Pamela (1907 – 1994). She was the only one of the sisters to remain in comparative obscurity. A dedicated country- and horsewomen, docile Pamela married a man as unlikely as the research spectroscopist and Oxford professor Derek Jackson. Enormously rich in his own right (he was, for example, a co-owner of the rag The News of the World), he had, among other things, devised the concept of the tin foil strips, which, dropped over the bombing target, rendered the German air raid defences inoperative. However, he served not just behind the scenes but rose to Wing Commander in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel during the war. Pamela's and Derek's mutual interest had been horses and dogs, which remained the case even after they divorced. Next was the only boy, Thomas (1909 – 1945). Educated at Eton, Thomas died without issue.

He was killed in the war in Burma through the bullet of a Japanese sniper. The title eventually went to Lord Redesdale's brother. Diana (1910 – 2003) was the third daughter. The opinions whether she or Deborah was the most beautiful of the girls differ. Diana Mitford married Bryan Guinness, scion of the immensely rich aristocratic beer-dynasty and heir to the title of Lord Moyne, when she was 19. When she was 22, she took her two children, left her husband and "nailed (her) colours to the mast" of the heavily married (to Cynthia, daughter of the former Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon) British Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, 14 years her senior. Mosley never intended to leave his loyal and long-suffering wife and his idea of two "wives" shocked even the debauched social circles in which he and Diana were moving. Sir Oswald's wife conveniently died in May 1933 and grief-stricken Oswald promptly embarked on an affair with his youngest sister-in-law, whereupon Diana went to Germany, taking Unity with her.

While there, they attended the first Nürnberg party rally and returned again for the second rally the next year. Unity introduced Diana to Hitler in March 1935. They were his guests at the 1935 rally and, in 1936, Hitler provided a Mercedes-Benz to chauffeur Diana to the Berlin Olympic Games. She continued to be Mosley's public mistress despite his endless affairs with other women. 1935, Diana was divorced from Bryan Guinness, who had pleaded guilty and provided "evidence" of his "adultery", as a man of his class was bound to do. In 1936, Mosley and Diana were married in a clandestine civil ceremony in Berlin, with Hitler and Goebbels attending. They made the marriage publicly known only after their first child was born in 1938. During WWII, she and Mosley were interned at London's Holloway Prison under, thanks to Winston Churchill, relatively comfortable circumstances, their two small children went to live with Diana's sister Pamela Jackson. 1943, after two years, they were both released on grounds of Sir Oswald's health and placed under house arrest until the end of the war.

Diana remained married to Mosley - and a dedicated Nazi - until the end. She wrote two books of memoirs, A Life of Contrasts (1977), and Loved Ones (1985), as well as a biography of the Duchess of Windsor, whom she had befriended when they were neighbours in post-war Paris where she and Mosley went to live. Diana Mitford (The Honourable Lady Mosley) died at the age of 93 as one of the many elderly victims of the heat wave that struck Europe in summer 2003 and with which the French had been unable to cope. Unity (left) and Diana (right), at the September 1937 Nürnberg Nazi Party rally. The next in line, Unity (1914 – 1948), is, to me, the least interesting, most one-dimensional of the sisters, although she was (and still is) the most notorious one. Plainly obnoxious and fairly dim, she always got her way by sheer disagreeableness and even managed to unnerve her battleaxe of a father by staring him down.

Different from her sisters', her eccentricity and obstinacy was not the means to an end or to express creativity, but its own reward. She loved to hurt and to wind people up for hurting's and winding up's sake. It started with releasing her pet rat in ballrooms as a deb and ended with becoming the world's first "polit groupie" to one of the nastiest dictators in history. At almost six foot, she was impressive at best, frightening at worst. (The accounts of her attractiveness differ considerably.) One of the girls who did the season with her described her as "cold because she'd never known love", but then, that would have applied to her sisters as well. Unity's season had, not too surprisingly, ended without an engagement in sight and, bored, she did exactly what her parents had told her not to do, namely to see her ostracised sister Diana. There she met Oswald Mosley and fell for him and his cause hook, line and sinker and when she expressed the wish to learn German, her unsuspecting parents, delighted and relieved that the notoriously useless Unity had finally expressed interest in something, let her travel to Munich. That was in 1933 and the rest is history.

She pursued Hitler and followed him like a dog until he finally took notice of her. Hitler, ever the petty-bourgeois, adored the fact that a girl from an English upper-class family should fancy him and indulged her and her every whim, together with, but not limited to, the gift of a lovely flat in Munich (char included) out of which a Jewish family had been thrown. Hitler's entourage unanimously hated her, her insolence and airs and graces and her potential influence. A telling of information informs us that she had to be admonished by an older woman friend that she was not to make fun of and be rude to Himmler's wife. Living in Germany, mainly in Berlin and Munich, on and off from 1933 to the outbreak of WWII, she met at home everything from raised eyebrows to stern disapproval, but only finally burnt her bridges when she sided publicly with Julius Streicher. Asked by a German diplomat's wife why she was getting involved with people like Streicher and his ilk Unity replied: "They help me get what I want", which sums up nicely her attitude towards life and humankind in general. Three epithets describe Unity best: Nasty, nasty and nasty.

When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939 and all Britons were forced to leave the country, Unity, rid of her role and her purpose in life, did the only plausible thing and attempted suicide. She shot herself in the head, but only suffered serious brain damage. She was returned to England, all German hospital bills paid for by Hitler, where doctors decided it was too dangerous to remove the bullet, and she eventually died at the age of 33 of meningitis caused by the swelling around the projectile. Jessica and Esmond Romilly in their bar in Miami (top). Jessica and Bob Treuhaft at a book presentation in the Seventies (below). The next sister, Jessica (1917 – 1996), eloped to Spain at the age of 19 with 18 year old Spanish Civil War veteran Esmond Romilly, her second cousin and a nephew of Winston Churchill. Educated at Wellington, Esmond was a journalist who wrote two autobiographies before he was 21 and had attracted media attention as Churchill's 'red nephew'. In Spain he worked as a reporter, along with his friend Philip Toynbee, Arnold Toynbee's son.

He and Toynbee collaborated on a journalistic account of the Spanish Civil War. Later, Toynbee wrote Esmond's biography Friends Apart. Jessica's and Edmond's spitting mad parents did everything, even involving the Royal Navy who sent a destroyer, to make still under age Jessica return to England and only her announcement that she was pregnant made them relent. The young couple was allowed to marry at the British Consulate in Bayonne, both heavily disapproving mothers in attendance. Jessica never saw her father again, who had cut all bonds and disowned her. He even refused on his deathbed (1958) to see her. Later, the Romillys settled for a brief while in Miami and opened a bar. When Britain declared war on Germany, Esmond Romilly went to Canada to volunteer. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force and was shot down over the North Sea in 1941 after a bombing raid over Nazi Germany. He was 23. The news of his death were broken to Jessica by Winston Churchill personally. Jessica went on to live in the USA, took on odd office jobs and worked hard for her living. She married the Harvard-educated lawyer and notorious leftist activist Robert Treuhaft.

Lord Redesdale is said to have had one of his legendary earth-shattering tantrums when he learned of the existence of a new son-in-law who was both, a Communist and a Jew. Later, she pursued an extremely successful career as an investigative writer. Carl Bernstein, who wrote the epilogue to Jessica's book The Gentle Art of Muckraking, conceded that her research skills were far above his. Her autobiography Hons and Rebels, which appeared 1960 (and which I haven't read) got much acclaim and throws light on her family and upbringing. Deborah and Andrew Cavendish's wedding. The youngest sister, Deborah (born 1920), married Lord Andrew Cavendish, second son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire, when they both were 21. At that time, Andrew was not expected to inherit the title. Because his older brother William (who was engaged to be married to Kathleen Kennedy, sister of JFK), was killed in combat in 1944, Andrew became Marquess of Hartington and 11th Duke of Devonshire after his father's death in 1950. Deborah Duchess of Devonshire never put a foot wrong.

She was considered the most perfect of all Duchesses of Devonshire. There had been ten before her. Deborah Mitford by Pietro Annigoni She has been the public face of Chatsworth House, the Devonshires' seat in Derbyshire, for many decades and remains so in her widowhood. She has written several books about Chatsworth and played a key role in the restoration of the house, the improvement of the garden, the development of commercial activities such as the Chatsworth Farm Shop (a business that employs a hundred people), and Chatsworth's other business operations. She has even been known to man the ticket office herself if the need arose. She became the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire in 2004 upon the death of her husband when her son inherited the title. Andrew and Deborah had been married for 63 years. Deborah, consecutively The Honourable Deborah Freeman-Mitford, Lady Andrew Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington, Duchess of Devonshire and Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, is the last surviving one of the famous Mitford sisters. As all women, with the exception of Pamela, led very public lives, there are plenty of pictures around.

To me, the most captivating ones are those of the old women, which clearly show how life had treated them – and they life. There is, of course, plenty of information on the Mitfords in the Internet . For those with a deeper interest in the history of the 20th century from this particular angle, Nancy's and Jessica's autobiographical books are certainly worth reading, as are, I am sure, if one can stomach it, Diana's. Jessica, Deborah and Pamela. In the background Alexander Mosley (son of Diana) and Alexander's wife Charlotte, Editor of 'The Nancy Mitford Diaries' at a book launch party held at The Reform Club on the 23rd of September 1993. I used apart from some of the above mentioned material a German book Die Mitford Sisters by Karlheinz Schädlich, Düsseldorf 1990, which contains a lot of information (plus some of the pictures shown here), but quite a few irritating errors and mistakes as well. Schädlich quotes extensively David Pryce-Jones, Unity Mitford. A Quest, London 1978.

Charlotte Mosley (Diana's daughter-in-law) wrote: A Talent to Annoy, Essays, Journalism, and Reviews by Nancy Mitford, London 1960. Posted by Evil Style Queen at 13:49 Nancy Mitford :: Nancy Permissions Nancy Mitford was born on 28 November 1904 in London, the eldest of the six legendary Mitford sisters. Their father, Lord Redesdale, a countryman at heart, worked in London at the office of The Lady until 1914. After the war he moved his family to Oxfordshire. Nancy and her sisters were educated at home and relied mainly on one another for company. Her high spirits and funniness lit up the family atmosphere but she was also a remorseless tease. The jokes, rivalries and passions of the Mitford childhood went straight into her highly autobiographical novels. Nancy grew up partly in the 1920s of The Bright Young Things and partly in the politically polarized 1930s. Her sisters Diana and Unity were drawn to the extreme Right and Jessica to the Left. Nancy wavered between the two but could never take politics – or indeed anything– very seriously.

Nancy started writing for magazines in 1929 and became a regular contributor to The Lady. In 1931, she published her first novel,Highland Fling. During the war she worked at Heywood Hill, the Mayfair bookshop, which became a meeting place for London literary society and her friends. Nancy fell in love with three un- satisfactory men. The first, Hamish Erskine, was homosexual but her infatuation with him lasted five years. In 1933 she married Peter Rodd, a clever, delinquent bore. They separated after the war and were divorced in 1958. In London during the war she met Gaston Palewski, a Free French officer and General de Gaulle’s chief of staff, at whose feet she laid all her passion and loyalty for over thirty years. Gaston never returned her love but they remained friends until her death. ‘If one can't be happy one must be amused don't you agree? ' Nancy wrote to a friend. It could stand as the motto for her life. She hid her deepest feelings behind a sparkling flow of jokes and witty turns of phrase, and was the star of any gathering.

Childless and unfulfilled in love she may have been, but Nancy found huge success as a writer. Her fifth novel, The Pursuit of Love(1945), was a phenomenal best seller and made her financially independent for the first time. In 1946 she moved to Paris to be near Gaston Palewski and remained in France for the rest of her life. She adored the country and saw everything French through rose-tinted spectacles. Separation and distance from her various friends and relations produced a flood of marvellous letters that are as important a part of her literary output as her books. In the late 1950s Nancy started writing about the history of France, describing historical characters as if they were her friends and contemporaries. These biographies were as successful as her novels. The Sun King, a brilliant evocation of the court of Louis XIV, was a worldwide bestseller. In the early 1950s Nancy wrote a regular column for the Sunday Times and continued to be in demand as a journalist and reviewer until the end of her life. Her friend Evelyn Waugh said that it was her true metier.

A light-hearted article she contributed to Encounter on the English aristocracy in 1954 sparked a hullabaloo over upper-class and non upper-class (U and non-U) speech and was a tease that even she thought went too far. In 1969 she moved to a house in Versailles and soon afterwards began to suffer from the onset of a rare form of Hodgkin's disease. Except for a few periods of remission, she was in great pain for over four years, which she bore with heroic courage. Nancy died on 30 June 1973 at home in Versailles. Her ashes are buried at the Church of St. Mary's in Swinbrook, Oxfordshire, where her parents and her sisters Pamela, Diana and Unity also lie. BOOKS ABOUT NANCY NANCY MITFORD: A Memoir (1975) by Harold Acton THE HOUSE OF MITFORD: Portrait of a Family (1984) by Jonathan Guinness with Catherine Guinness NANCY MITFORD: A Biography (1985) by Selina Hastings The Biography of an Extraordinary Family (2001) by Mary S.

Lovell LIFE IN A COLD CLIMATE, NANCY MITFORD: A Portrait of a Contradictory Woman (2003) by Laura Thompson Images clockwise from top left: Portrait courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby's, family portrait © The Mitford Archive, portrait and plaque photograph © The Mitford Archive, drawing of Nancy by Cecil Beaton, contact sheet courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby's, painting by Mogens Tvede © The Mitford Archive, photograph by Bassano © National Portrait Gallery, London. Personal effects © The Mitford Archive, Sitemap - Website by Burble - Design by Megan Wilson

Question: Which of the Mitford sisters wrote the semi- autobiography 'Pursuit Of Love' in 1945?
Answer: NANCY