The Mitford Girls

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This extensive biography tells the story of the six Mitford daughters: Nancy, whose bright social life masked a doomed love which soured her success; Pam, a countrywoman married to a millionaire physicist; Diana, an iconic beauty, who fell in love with Oswald Moseley, the leader of the British Fascists; Unity, who became a member of Hitler’s inner circle before shooting herself when the Second World War was declared; Jessica, the family rebel, who declared herself a Communist in the schoolroom and the youngest sister, Debo, who became the Duchess of Devonshire.

‘She has had access to material which was not previously available, mainly Decca’s correspondence, but also some unpublished letters from James Lees-Milne, who was a close friend of the family, and certain Mitford papers at Chatsworth. She has also interviewed the two surviving Mitford sisters, Diana Mosley and the Duchess of Devonshire. And she paints a somewhat more human, in fact more tragic, picture of the Mitfords than previous biographers.’ Lynn Barber, Observer

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...

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...

Left, Left, Left

Selina Hastings on Jessica Mitford, Hons and Rebels

In the early 1980s I began working on my first book, a biography of Nancy Mitford. Four of the six Mitford sisters were then still living, Pamela in the Cotswolds, Diana in Paris with her second...

Honourable Rebel

Daisy Hay on Jessica Mitford, Hons and Rebels

Jessica Mitford found the act of sitting down to write formidably hard. ‘’Tis now 12:30 on the first day I was to really work all day on the book,’ she reported to her husband and daughter in...

Hons and Rebels | The Society of Hons

Jessica Mitford, Hons and Rebels

Unity and I made up a complete language called Boudledidge, unintelligible to any but ourselves, into which we translated various dirty songs (for safe singing in front of the Grown-Ups) and large...