Non fiction about aristocratic families

[Bavariamaria]

Does anyone have any recommendations please? Have worked my way through everything to do with the Mitford sisters and looking for anything similar about big families with lots going on.

Sound great!

@SwallowsandAmazonians Thank you! It's out now and available everywhere that people like to buy books :)

‘A Charmed Life - Growing Up In Macbeth’s Castle’ by Lisa Campbell is a fantastic example of the trials of modern aristocracy. Written by the daughter of the late Earl of Cawdor it delves into her father’s reaction to inheriting the lands and titles and how it ultimately broke their family apart.

There are several
about Queen Victoria’s children, and Edward Vll’s children. They are good.

@brushingbootsthat sounds very interesting!

came here to rec Black Diamonds but i see i am not even 2nd on that. Highly recommended, especially since you can visit the house again now.

not surely it really fits the brief, but A Woman of Passion by Julia Briggs is an excellent biography of Edith Nesbitt.

I have read them all. They are very good. In fact, Anne Glenconner was my first thought when I read this thread title.

Anne, Lady Glenconnerwas lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret not Queen Elizabeth II.

Another vote for this one.

Daughter of Empire by Lady Pamela Hicks

A Childhood in Scotland by Christian Miller

This one is a bit more obscure, but definitely a good read.

https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Childhood_in_Scotland.html?id=AtIZAAAAYAAJ

Mrs Jordan’s Profession by Clare Tomalin. Amazing book

@Toddlerteaplease thank you! It was a long labour of love but an amazing project to work on.

And I agree about Black Diamonds @Brefugee – the house is amazing and well worth a visit. It features heavily in the first chapter of my book which is dedicated to the Fitzwilliams, as it happens!

.

Black Diamonds is fabulous and I second a PP who suggested Portrait of a Marriage.

My own suggestion is, Inheritance: the story of Knole and the Sackvilles by Robert Sackville-West.

It's a really good read-the story of an aristocratic family told through the story of their house, which I think is amongst the biggest-if not the biggest-in England

This is very entertaining.

somervillepress.company.site/BRICKS-AND-FLOWERS-An-Anglo-Irish-Memoir-p458763257

I second James Lees Milnes' diaries, a fascinating, waspish view of that world from the 1940s to the 1980s.

I've just ordered the Maggie Grenville story
The rags to riches story of an illigitimate girl, who grew up to mix with royalty and the aristocracy. She left her jewellery collection to the queen mother.

Hannah Rothschild wrote a biography called 'The Baroness' about her great aunt.

My book has arrived 😄

There’s ‘To Marry An English Lord’ which talks about the American heiresses who wanted to catch a title in the late Victorian/ Edwardian period by Gail MacColl; The Astors by Virginia Cowles; Amanda Foreman’s book ‘Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire’. .

There’s also a good book by Greg King and another by Diana Mitford on Wallis Simpson; and ‘America’s Queen’ by Sarah Bradford about Jackie Kennedy is a good one.

Hope these help

James Lees Milnes' diaries.
He was a friend of the Mitfords, and that set. So an interesting side-light on them. For instance, he holidayed with Vita Sackville West and Harold Nicolson, and she would drive up to the front of any grand house she liked the look of and ask to be shown round.
But he also visited big old houses for the National Trust, with and eye to whether the NT should take them on. He met, and describes very candidly, all sorts of aristocrats.
What was especially interesting was the period before the end of WWII. Several of the people he knew and met (including Tom Mitford) were pro Nazi and, of course, there was no assurance about who would win the war.

The non fiction ones are interesting.

I listened to it on audible and got very confused due to her incredibly posh accent. She would say things like "He was really kind to me" and I'd be surprised because she was talking about her husband who was an arsehole, then I realised she'd actually said "He was rarely kind to me".

Still fascinating though!

Empty Mansions by Bill Denman about American old money family, utterly fascinating and quite sad too.

I've got a corker. "Wedlock: How Georgian Britain's worst husband met his match" by Wendy Moore. Even on Mumsnet the behaviour of Andrew Stoney would raise eyebrows. He tricked Mary Eleanor Bowes, the richest heiress of the day, into marriage, treated her abominably, and ended up by kidnapping her and fleeing with her in a cross country chase. It's a true story but Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer never wrote anything so sensational. Highly recommended.