Product Description

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.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9174 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-03
• Original language: English
• 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

About the Author
Born into 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. She also wrote biographies, translated from the French and edited a celebrated symposium on English Aristocrats.

---

Customer Reviews

Abroad is unutterably bloody and all foreigners are fiends
My favourite book since I was twelve. Follow the fortunes of an eccentric English aristocratic country family whose father - "Fa" buys a new car whenever he thinks they are having a financial crisis. The children are obsessed by sex and discuss it endlessly in the "Hon's cupboard" - the only warm place in the house. This book has littered my whole life with quotes and is so well-thumbed it is positively dog-eared and has been dropped in the bath endlessly. Just get yourself a copy - it will be a friend for life.

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.

A simply marvellous collection
I remember Nancy Mitford's novels being read avidly by girls at school but I never got round to reading them until now. I am not sure what my teenage self would have made of them but I'm certainly glad that I've caught up with this extraordinary writer.

Although set in a time and society that is distant to most of us, there is an enchanting freshness and immediacy about these stories. They are simply buzzing with charm and wit. The first of the novels, "In Pursuit of Love", has its strength in the characterisation with two of the most hilarious but utterly believable characters I have ever encountered: the bluff Uncle Matthew and the marvellous "Bolter". Almost every line from these two is priceless. "Love in a Cold Climate" continues with the same narrator and characters and is a far more polished work in terms of structure and plot.

The final novel in this collection, "The Blessing", was perhaps the one I enjoyed most of all, its central theme being the culture clash when an English Rose marries a dashing Frenchman.

My only criticism of this edition of these novels is that, while this collection offers good value for money, the print is a little small to read. In addition, I read the three novels one after another which was rather like having three stiff Gin & Tonics in a row: maybe a little too much of a good thing!