Nancy Mitford: A Memoir

by Diana Mosley (Foreword), HaroldActon (Author), Diana Mosley ( Introduction ) (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $21.35

  The only biography in print of Nancy Mitford, written by her friend Harold Acton shortly after her death. Defining an exceptionally witty era whose vanishing continues to fascinate, Nancy Mitford's writings have remained steadfast in their popularity - like those of Evelyn Waugh, her male counterpart. The repackaging of Mitford's novels Love in A Cold Climate, The Pursuit of Love, Don't Tell Alfred (Penguin 2000/1) and a recent television series on the Mitfords have done much to feed the interest in her life. Harold Acton's book is driven by his intimate knowledge of her. Both belonging to a blissfully carefree generation, he shows her as she thought of herself and was seen by those closest to her. Formidable, loyal, amusing and determined, her life was tragic only in that she knew exactly how to handle her fate with a supreme wit reminiscent of Bridget Jones' diaries.

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $6.49

  Nancy Mitford was witty, intelligent, often acerbic, a great tease and an acute observer of upper-class British idiosyncrasies. With the publication of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate (advised by Evelyn Waugh), she became a huge bestselling author and has remained a household name ever since. A few years before she died, she had started to collect material and letters to use for an autobiography. Her devastating illness prevented her from writing this memoir, but in 1974 Harold Acton, her close friend, completed her project on the basis of what she had collected in a work that is a witty tribute to her larger-than-life personality.