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Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford

Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford

by PeterY.Sussman (Editor)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2006

    $3.25

  • Used

    Paperback 2007

    $3.25
Synopsis

Over her 78 years, Decca's letters are the most tangible tracks left of a remarkable life - from her childhood as the daughter of a British peer (Lord Redesdale) to her scandalous elopement to the Spanish Civil War with her cousin Esmond Romilly, to her life in the United States, where she married a radical lawyer, Robert Treuhaft in San Francisco. The Mitford girls (five sisters) included Diana (who married the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley), Unity (who was close to Adolf Hitler) and Debo (who became the Duchess of Devonshire). Decca shocked them all when she joined the American Communist Party. Her letters are the stories of a century: gossip and politics, war and mores, the wonders of rapid technological change, the poignancy of personal struggles. They are also a record of her never-ending quest for social justice. Her letters were also a rehearsal for her published works (which included her memoir, HONS AND REBELS and her investigative masterpiece, THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH), which refined the first observations she threw into her letters. This is a fascinating collection that reveals to us intimately the most ebullient Mitford of them all.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 768
 Edition: First Edition - Later Print Run
 Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Published: 06 Nov 2006
ISBN 10: 0297607456
ISBN 13: 9780297607458
Book Overview: Jessica Mitford, author of THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH and HONS AND REBELS, one of the greatest and entertaining and politically engaged figures of the 20th century Nancy's LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE and THE PURSUIT OF LOVE filmed by BBC (2001). Sales of Mitford-related titles are impressive. HOUSE OF MITFORD by Jonathan Guinness (Phoenix pb 12,000 copies in little more than year); THE MITFORD GIRLS by Mary Lovell (Time Warner/Little Brown UK 21,000 hb and 80,000pb) Mitford was a consummate wit and a mistress of letter writing The editor was a close family friend with access to much new information (Jessica kept copies of all her letters) and archive information. He was requested by the estate to compile this book.

Media Reviews
'Jessica Mitford has been my heroine since I was 14 years old... Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford gives, as letters usually do, a much fuller picture of the writer than either of her own autobiographies, and I finished reading feeling even fonder and more admiring of her than before... Decca's letters sing with the qualities that first made her so attractive to me. Incurably and instinctively rebellious, brave, adventurous, funny and irreverent... Peter Sussman has done a masterly job of editing these letters. His footnotes are exemplary, illuminating at least one relationship that had eluded me though 27 years of reading about the Mitfords.' Having read my way through it, I'm already wishing there was a second volume. Peter Y Sussman is a sublime editor of one of the funniest, most enthralling and gloriously honest collections of contemporary letters I have yet read... Here is a book to be savoured and revisited impure and undiluted pleasure, from start to finish. -- MIRANDA SEYMOUR SUNDAY TIMES Of the myriad fascinating and unexpected things that Decca's letters reveal, it is her recovery from childhood resentment that moves me most. THE TIMES 'Edited by Peter Y. Sussman, Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford (Knopf) captures history's most charming muckraker, from her friendships with Katharine Graham and Maya Angelou to her devotion to civil rights, which led to a subpoena to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee-an experience she later listed under Honors, Awards, and Prizes on her resume.' -- Vogue this book, a labour of love and admiration, is... a great treat and a deserved treat. SPECTATOR These letters are a treat; not so much a collection of of correspondence as an extended conversation on which the reader is invited to eavesdrop... as an example of what a woman can do once she has rid herself of, or at least decided to ignore, the expectations of others - family, men, society - Jessica Mitford will always take some beating. -- ANNE CHISHOLM OBSERVER Sussman guides the reader through long footnotes... He was an old friend, and his is a labour of love. Jessica Mitford inspired devotion. -- VICTORIA GLENDINNING THE DAILY TELEGRAPH wonderfully interesting... Decca possesses all the characteristics of a great letter-writeer; she is honest, she is gossipy, she has a good ear, she gets out and about and she keeps bumping into famous people, among them Hilary Clinton, Guy Burgess, Liberace and Martin Luther King. -- CRAIG BROWN THE MAIL ON SUNDAY a funny, enthralling and gloriously honest collection. THE SUNDAY TIMES - YOU REALLY MUST READ Having heard one fifteen minute excerpt, from what is a much longer book, I know I simply have to own it. -- SCOTT PACK THE FRIDAY PROJECT.CO.UK 'For sheer pleasure-just to sample the breadth of an extraordinary existence-the book of the season has got to be Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford, edited by Peter Y. Sussman.' -- The New York Observer The letters are a treasure NEW YORK TIMES A reader of Decca, her newly collected letters, can only marvel THE NEW YORKER This is a superb collection of letters, and editor Peter Y Sussman deserves the greatest possible praise and gratitude. His introduction, connecting essays and extensive notes supply all the biographical and historical information a reader needs. Being witty as well as scholarly, he is precisely the right guide through life in the letters of the most astonishing Mitford girls. -- MICHAEL DIRDA WASHINGTON POST revealing and witty collection... -- ROBERT GWYN PALMER THE RESIDENT
Author Bio
Peter Y. Sussman has had a long career as a writer and editor. He was an editor for 29 years at the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. His work was followed avidly by Decca herself and he assisted her in researching one of her books, KIND AND USUAL PUNISHMENT. Sussman is the co-author, with prison writer Dannie M. Martin, of COMMITTING JOURNALISM (WWNorton, New York)