Mitford splurge

[ggglmpp]

I amm going away at the end of april and need to take some reading. I am going to 'do' the mitfotrds. What should I buy and in what order to read - fic and non fic - oh clued up umsnetter, please......

Love in a Cold Climate is my out-and-out favourite Nancy Mitford novel.

The others I read (and liked) are Don't Tell Alfred, The Pursuit of Love, and The Blessing. I don't think you need to read them in any particular order, though the same characters crop up in some of the books, and Love in a Cold Climate is 'first' WRT any sort of time-line. I think they may even come in an anthology.

"The Mitford Girls" by Mary S Lovell. Absolutely brilliant. I haven't read any other books about them but there are a load out there. They had "interesting" political views to say the least!!!

You need 'Hons and Rebels' by Jessica Mitford, partly because it's fascinating seeing her take on the family on which Nancy based some of her novels, and partly because she had a really interesting life.

I would say start off with Nancy's 2 best, The Pursuit of Love and Love In A Cold Climate, then whatever you fancy.

oh how super!
Ther is not a Mitford book to be had in any Library for many, many hundreds of miles around these parts.

Where are you going?

That's true! It always intrigues me that it doesn't seem to appear in the novels (at least, not the ones I've read and remember). The only glimmering of it is a suggestion of 'kinder, kirch, kuchen', and that men are allowed to run around, whereas women should be faithful, tolerate it, and wait for them to return to the fold.

ggglmpp, you will love The Blessing & Don't Tell Alfred - it's all France and the French and how wonderful & superior to us they are

Didn't Nancy write an early one (Wigs on the Green, I think) that satirised the Blackshirts and hugely wound up Unity?

for non-fiction I would recommend Hons and Rebels, by Jessica, the letters edited by Charlotte Mosley (granddaughter of Diana) and Life in a Cold Climate, which is a biog. of Nancy.

But perhaps not all in the same holiday!

oh and the letters between Nancy and Evelyn Waugh are also wonderful if occasionally cringe-making

Chronologically Nancy's go:

The Pursuit of Love (Radletts and Fanny from quite small)
Love in a Cold Climate (Fanny as a young wife)
The Blessing - main characters are new but Fabrice de Sauveterre (father of Linda's son) is mentioned
Don't Tell Alfred - Fanny is grown up, with old children, and The Blessing characters are included.

I got an old anthology with all 4 in from amazon; the current anthologies exclude Don't Tell Alfred for some reason.

HTH

Thank you all - yes, will do a list and order on line this afternoon.

Anyone have any suggestions for an online bookshop that is good for France?

WW are you at home this pm?

Love from Nancy (her letters, edited by Charlotte Mosley who seems to have a job for life with her aunts ) is excellent but out of print.

Isn't there an Amazon.fr?

Yes I am, until about 5.30 your time.

oh you'll love it all ggg ( must get book group to do one)..
one of my favourite lines is Uncle Matthew's 'abroad is unutterrably bloody and all foreigners are fiends' ...
Did anyone see the tv adaption of Love in a C C - I think Judi Dench was Aunt Sadie...Fanny was played by a woman who viewed my old house twice (didn't buy it)

oh sorry, am being dozy, just realised French Amazon might not stock them....

Oh, have I got it the wrong way round, Wendy? I thought that the main characters, who then get mentioned to one degree or another in the other novels, were introduced in LIACC, whereas TPOL was about Polly Hampton and Boy Dougdale (I never really 'got' that one, must re-read it).

yes, LIACC is about Polly - the Montdores have been living in India which is why it is a cold climate when they come back to England.

at boy, so creepy.

amazon.fr do have them, and in English

(Nancy was a passionate Francophile of course)

This is the same 2nd-hand anthology I have (Hamish Hamilton 1974) but 70 euros

(Mind you mine is not Très bon )

Yes, she was, and that reminds me - there's a collection of her journalism called 'A Talent To Annoy' which might be of particular interest to GGG as a lot of it is about living in France.