Product Description

This brilliantly funny novel revisits some of the characters from Nancy Mitford’s earlier stories including Fanny, who is married to bumbling, absent-minded Oxford don, Alfred. Fanny is content in her role as a tweedy housewife with ‘ghastly’ clothes, but her life changes overnight when Alfred is appointed English Ambassador to Paris. Suddenly she is mixing with royalty and Rothschilds, hosting cocktail parties and having details of her every move and outfit printed in the papers. As if that wasn’t all more than enough to contend with, she also finds herself dealing with an aristocratic squatter, organising her friends’ love lives and keeping track of her maverick sons. All she needs now is a diplomatic crisis…

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11121 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
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. After the war she moved, with her husband, to Paris where she lived for the rest of her life. She followed the success of The Pursuit of Love with Love in a Cold Climate (1949) The Blessing (1951) and Don't Tell Alfred (1960), published together in Penguin as The Nancy Mitford Omnibus. 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.

Customer Reviews

Classic Mitford
This book can be read in it's own right, but I feel that I enjoyed it more because I had already read her earlier works, "The Pursuit of Love" and "Love in a Cold Climate" in which we get introduced to Fanny for the first time. She now seems like an old friend, and plenty more old faces pop up. I like the fact that the times have moved on and Mitford tackles the rise of the "teenage" phenomenon of the fifties with her usual dry wit and irony. I find it especially interesting to read it now in the light of the current obsession with youth culture. Read this and find out how it all began!

Fabulous
This wonderful book is as light as souffle and just as delicious, it is best read lying on the chaise longue in your boudoir, wearing a marabou trimmed dressing gown, languidly sipping pink champagne and the scent of Chanel No 5 in the air is of course mandatory.

Don't tell Alfred
I hardly think that Nancy Mitford needs anyone to review her work , it never lets you down , her books are witty , delightfully written with a light hearted gaiety that is infectious , they lift a bad mood better than any other read , to read her books is to wish to make her a close friend , highly recommended read
June Wilson