A short life of the author
Nancy Freeman-Mitford CBE (28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973) was a British novelist and biographer who was the eldest and the most literarily gifted of the six Mitford sisters — a family whose collective lives encompassed Fascism (Diana married Oswald Mosley; Unity became a devotee of Hitler), Communism (Jessica became an American radical), aristocratic eccentricity (Deborah became Duchess of Devonshire), and deep rural obscurity (Pamela raised chickens). Nancy observed it all with a wit and a sharp eye that she transformed into some of the funniest and most enchanting English novels of the twentieth century.
Life
Mitford was born in London and grew up in the Oxfordshire countryside in conditions that were simultaneously privileged and eccentric. Her father, David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, was an irascible, philistine aristocrat who opposed the education of women; Nancy and her sisters were educated at home by a series of governesses and largely taught themselves through voracious reading. The family’s peculiarities — the private language, the exotic pets, the violently expressed prejudices, the general atmosphere of controlled chaos — provided Nancy with the material for her fiction.
She married Peter Rodd in 1933 (a marriage that was unhappy and eventually dissolved) and fell in love with Gaston Palewski, a Free French officer and aide to Charles de Gaulle, during World War II. Her love for Palewski — passionate, unrequited in the ways that mattered, and enduring — shaped the emotional core of her novels and led her to move to Paris in 1946, where she lived for the rest of her life.
The Pursuit of Love (1945)
Mitford’s masterpiece — written in three months and based closely on her own family — tells the story of Linda Radlett, one of seven children of the eccentric, xenophobic Uncle Matthew (a portrait of Lord Redesdale), who searches for love through a series of disastrous relationships. The novel is narrated by Linda’s cousin Fanny — the sensible observer through whose eyes the Radlett family’s glorious dysfunction is rendered with an affection that never quite becomes sentimentality.
The novel is one of the great English comedies of manners: its depiction of upper-class English rural life between the wars is simultaneously satirical and nostalgic, and its tone — light, witty, apparently effortless — conceals considerable emotional depth. Linda’s final love affair, with a Free French officer clearly based on Palewski, gives the novel its romantic climax and its melancholy ending.
Love in a Cold Climate (1949)
The companion novel — featuring the same narrator but centring on the Montdore family — is funnier and more satirical than The Pursuit of Love. Its portrait of Lady Montdore — a magnificent social tyrant who dominates her family and her county — is one of the great comic creations of English fiction.
U and Non-U
In 1955, Mitford wrote an essay for Encounter magazine on the linguistic markers of English social class — the difference between “upper-class” (U) and “non-upper-class” (Non-U) vocabulary. “Napkin” is U; “serviette” is Non-U. “Lavatory” is U; “toilet” is Non-U. The essay, based on the research of the linguist Alan Ross, caused a sensation. Mitford edited Noblesse Oblige (1956), a collection of responses including Evelyn Waugh’s contribution, that became one of the most entertaining books about English class ever published.
The Biographies
Mitford’s three biographies — Madame de Pompadour (1954), Voltaire in Love (1957), and The Sun King (1966) — reflect her love of France and of the ancien régime. They are not academic histories but vivid, witty, beautifully written narratives that bring their subjects to life with the same eye for character and social detail that distinguishes her novels.
Collecting Mitford
The Pursuit of Love (1945, Hamish Hamilton) in first edition with dust jacket brings $200–$600. Love in a Cold Climate (1949) brings $100–$300. Noblesse Oblige (1956) brings $30–$80. Signed copies are available but not abundant.