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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15704 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-03
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Gathering three of Nancy Mitford's most famous works --The Pursuit of Love and The Blessing are included here alongside Love In A Cold Climate--this collection is the perfect introduction to a writer of great wit and charm, a singular voice in modern English prose whose themes are deeper and more profound than brief acquaintance might suggest. The first two novels, especially Pursuit..., are semi-autobiographical: the Radletts of Alconleigh are portraits of Mitford's own eccentric clan, while she herself appears as Fanny, a family cousin and the novels' narrator. The irrepressible, precocious Radletts provide many of the early instances of Mitford's deliciously wicked humour:

There was much worse drama when Linda, aged twelve, told the daughters of neighbours, who had come to tea, what are supposed to be the facts of life. Linda's presentation of the "facts" had been so gruesome that the children left Alconleigh howling dismally, their nerves permanently impaired, their future chances of a sane and happy sex life much reduced.

Following the amorous trajectories of Linda Radlett and of Polly Hampton, the first two books here are at once extremely funny and deeply serious, delineating the possibilities for love in a world circumscribed by the formal expectations and conventions of marriage. Mitford's heroines dramatise the search for a true or ideal relationship, regardless of social institutions or sexual orientation. If her casual attitude to adultery and, particularly, her portrait of Cedric--a gay character who is charming, flirtatious, and above all happy--resulted in her work being vilified by contemporaries for its "decadence" and "immorality", her exploration of female sexuality seems now to be resolutely modern, arguing the right to happiness and fulfilment.

Nancy Mitford's considerable literary output--biography, journalism, translation, fiction--has been somewhat eclipsed by the biographical extravagance of her extraordinary family: her sisters Unity and Diana (the wife of Sir Oswald Mosley) were enthusiastic fascists who notoriously cultivated the friendship of Adolf Hitler; another sister, Jessica, ran away to America and became a left-wing journalist, later writing The American Way of Death. Her case has not been helped by her subject-matter, for the milieu of the wealthy upper classes and their deep-rooted snobbishness and casual bigotry is one that might easily repel a reader who misses the irony, satire and the surfacing of darker concerns that characterise the books. A shame, for she is one of the true originals of modern English writing. --Burhan Tufail

Synopsis
In one of the wittiest novels of them all, Nancy Mitford casts a finely gauged net to capture perfectly the foibles and fancies of the English upper class. Set in the privileged world of the county house party and the London season, this is a comedy of English manners between the wars by one of the most individual, beguiling and creative users of the language.

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Customer Reviews

Beguiling, witty, fun
After many years since first reading Love in a Cold Climate, meeting Nancy Mitford's beguiling, hilarious, characters again, is a laughter fest. Surprises there are midst the intrigue. Who could forget the unexpected transformation of posh, stuffy, Lady Montdore by zany, camp, Cedric Hampton? Or charming, lecherous, womaniser Boyd Douglas, who is much more than he seems to be. This Penguin edition is particularly good value with the inclusion of In Pursuit of Love, and The Blessing, three of Nancy Mitford's memorable novels. For night owls they won't cure insomnia, they will though captivate, make you laugh, and make wish there were more. Which there are, if you search Amazon.

Excellent
I agree with both the two very different reviewers here, but would like to add that the writing is sublime, and the emotions completely heartfelt, especially the end of Linda's story. Yes, the family is aristocratic, snobbish and enamoured of hunting, but they're also loving, witty and close ranks whenever anyone tries to prise them apart - so they're not all bad! This is one of those books that you can return to again and again (I had to buy the hardback edition because of that!) and it's still magical, moving and funny.

Enter into the cosy world of Mitford
If, like me, you are no fan of the parasitic landed gentry, don't worry: this trifecta of novels will confirm rather than contradict your views and it will give you greater ammunition for arguments against elitism. The upper-class [...] who inhabit Mitford's stories regularly disgrace themselves and do little to justify their existence. But after the first novel, The Pursuit of Love, you may well forget politics and class issues. Mitford's novels are clever, entertaining and funny. She writes exceedingly well, she keeps the stories moving and she doesn't pretend to be anything that she's not. She lets us live vicariously through her silly, snobbish characters for a while and if we emerge, at the end of the stories, with no greater sympathy for those characters, is that such a bad thing?

I highly recommend this collection.