Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy MitfordNancy Mitford died in 1973 before she could write an autobiography. But she was one of the great letter writers of this century, and her sparkling correspondence to her famous family and to a wide circle of brilliant friends - Evelyn Waugh, Harold Acton, Robert Byron, Cyril Connolly, and Raymond Mortimer, among many others - sheds an extraordinary light on their lives and the times in which they lived. Novelist, biographer, and journalist, Nancy was born in 1904 into a family that seemed always to he in Britain's headlines - and not only on the society pages. The eldest of Lord and Lady Redesdale's seven talented children (writer Jessica Mitford among them), Nancy immortalized their family life in her first bestseller, The Pursuit of Love. Her natural wit, fed by the frivolous 1920s, was undimmed by her political coming of age in the 1930s, or the courage and stoicism of wartime London. At war's end she moved to Paris, and her home there became "a congenial rendezvous of French and English letters", in the words of her friend Harold Acton. From this perch, Nancy wrote her daily correspondence, delighting in her adopted country and skewering pretension wherever she found it. Wildly funny and filled with outrageous gossip, Mitford's letters detail not only the foolishness and foibles of London and Parisian society, but also the more tragic story of an unhappy marriage and her often anguished affair with "the Colonel", a leading member of de Gaulle's government. Love from Nancy is the first published collection of Nancy's correspondence. It draws on eight thousand letters spanning six decades, many dashed off with hardly a crossed-out word, all so full of verve that the writer seems to beat one's elbow. It includes an important selection of letters to Evelyn Waugh, her close friend and literary mentor. Whether asking Waugh what Roman Catholics believe awaits them in heaven or soliciting Field Marshal Montgomery's opinion of the latest Paris fashions, these letters give us Nancy Mitford at her provocative and teasing best. |
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American asked awful beautiful believe bore called can't Colonel comes course Darling daughter dear death December Diana don't dress England English Evelyn Waugh everything expect fact February feel France French funny GASTON give happy hate hear hope idea it's Italy January John July June keep kind Lady leave letter live London look Lord March Mark Married Mary mean mind Miss Mitford months Mosley mother Nancy Nancy's never nice night November once PALEWSKI Paris party perhaps Peter poor pretty published Raymond Redesdale rue Monsieur seems seen sent September simply sister soon sort stay suppose talk tell terrible thank thing thought told turned Versailles Violet week whole wonderful write written wrote young