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Mitford, Nancy

The Pursuit of Love, [20] 7; [61] 7; Love in a Cold Climate, [20] 7; The Blessing; Don’t Tell Alfred, [61] 7

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20221229112300 Hens, Hons and Counter-Hons | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

Hens, Hons and Counter-Hons | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

‘It was becoming rather apparent by this year of 1935 that not all of us were turning out quite according to plan,’ writes Jessica Mitford in her brilliantly funny and perceptive account of growing up as the fifth of the six notoriously headstrong Mitford sisters. And it was perhaps Jessica – always known as Decca – the lifelong hard-line socialist, who turned out least ‘according to plan’ of them all. We hope you enjoy reading an extract from Slightly Foxed Edition No. 52: Hons and Rebels.
20081201102018 Daniel Macklin - Michele Hanson on Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love; Love in a Cold Climate

Shrieks and Floods

Michele Hanson on The Pursuit of Love; Love in a Cold Climate

It’s been hard to avoid the Mitfords recently. A collected edition of the letters of Jessica (‘Decca’) was published in 2006. The following year another collection, this time of the letters exchanged between all six sisters, appeared. And this autumn we’ve been treated to the correspondence between the youngest sister, Debo, now Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, and Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor.
20190301114851 Laura Freeman on Nancy Mitford's Parisian novels, Slightly Foxed Issue 61

The Paris Effect

Laura Freeman on Nancy Mitford’s Parisian novels

Brimming. That was how I spent my first weeks in Paris. Brimming with tears at the smallest setback. For Nancy Mitford’s Northey in Don’t Tell Alfred, dispatched to Paris to be secretary to Fanny Wincham, the new Madame l’Ambassadrice at the British Embassy, it is the ‘cruel food’ of France that sets her off. Beef consommé. Brimming. Lobster. Brimming. Foie gras. Brimming. ‘A Frenchman on board told me what they do to sweet geese for pâté de foie gras,’ says Northey at dinner on her first night at the Ambassador’s Residence. ‘Very wrong and stupid of him,’ says Fanny.

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