Product Description

Few aristocratic English families of the twentieth century enjoyed the glamorous notoriety of the infamous Mitford sisters. Nancy Mitford's most famous novels, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, satirize British aristocracy in the twenties and thirties through the amorous adventures of the Radletts, an exuberantly unconventional family closely modelled on Mitford's own.

The Radletts of Alconleigh occupy the heights of genteel eccentricity, from terrifying Lord Alconleigh (who, like Mitford's father, used to hunt his children with bloodhounds when foxes were not available), to his gentle wife, Sadie, their wayward daughter Linda, and the other six lively Radlett children. Mitford's wickedly funny prose follows these characters through misguided marriages and dramatic love affairs, as the shadow of World War II begins to close in on their rapidly vanishing world.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40343 in Books
• Published on: 2001-12-04
• Released on: 2001-12-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780375718991
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Few aristocratic English families of the 20th century have enjoyed quite the delicious notoriety that the Mitford sisters courted in the years bracketed by two world wars. For a start, two of the girls, Unity and Diana, were Fascists (the former was a friend of Hitler and Goebbels, and the latter married Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists). Two others took the writing route: Jessica ran away from home and became a famous muckraking journalist, and Nancy composed maliciously witty--and transparently autobiographical--novels as well as several biographies. The Pursuit of Love (1945), her greatest fictional success, and its companion, Love in a Cold Climate (1949), keep closely to the spirit (and details) of their youthful amusements and more grown-up adventures.

Seen through the adoring eyes of Fanny Logan, the self-effacing cousin who records their shenanigans with a wicked sincerity, the Radletts of Alconleigh shine with Gloucestershire glamour: apoplectic Uncle Matthew; Lord Alconleigh (modeled to a fine nuance after Mitford's father, Lord Redesdale, who like Uncle Matthew used to hunt his children with bloodhounds); his kind, rather vague wife, Aunt Sadie; as well as Fanny's favorite cousin Linda and the other six Radlett children. The Radlett daughters and Fanny wait impatiently for life to become interesting. Because of their station, however, nothing but marriage is expected of them, so they hurl themselves at love like crusaders, with varied and always fascinating results. At one point Fanny recounts:

A few minutes only after Linda had left me to go back to London, Christian and the comrades, I had another caller. This time it was Lord Merlin...."This is a bad business," he said, abruptly, and without preamble, though I had not seen him for several years. "I'm just back from Rome, and what do I find--Linda and Christian Talbot. It's an extraordinary thing that I can't ever leave England without Linda getting herself mixed up with some thoroughly undesirable character. This is a disaster--how far has it gone? Can nothing be done?"

The Pursuit of Love follows the romantic fortunes of Linda Radlett, while Love in a Cold Climate ventures further afield with the story of Polly Hampton's shocking love affair and its unexpectedly funny aftermath. Fanny's inexhaustible narration is a pleasant buffer for Mitford's deft teasing, which dances along just this side of mockery. The author of U and Non-U, a famous tongue-in-cheek treatise on the shibboleths of upper-class mores, Mitford often leaves the reader wondering just where she stands in the class wars, and much of her humor arises in the fine distinctions of aristocratic manners and speech. Still, there's an inimitable tart sweetness to these stories of true love and its pallid imitators, making them perfect snapshots of a vanished world. --Barrie Trinkle

From the Inside Flap
Few aristocratic English families of the twentieth century enjoyed the glamorous notoriety of the infamous Mitford sisters. Nancy Mitford's most famous novels, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, satirize British aristocracy in the twenties and thirties through the amorous adventures of the Radletts, an exuberantly unconventional family closely modelled on Mitford's own.

The Radletts of Alconleigh occupy the heights of genteel eccentricity, from terrifying Lord Alconleigh (who, like Mitford's father, used to hunt his children with bloodhounds when foxes were not available), to his gentle wife, Sadie, their wayward daughter Linda, and the other six lively Radlett children. Mitford's wickedly funny prose follows these characters through misguided marriages and dramatic love affairs, as the shadow of World War II begins to close in on their rapidly vanishing world.

About the Author
Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) was born in London, the eldest of Lord Redesdale's seven children. By her twenties she was a friend of Evelyn Waugh and his circle and had begun writing novels.

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Customer Reviews

Out of Control Laughter
For anyone sick of the ramifications of political correctness, Mitford's books are the antidote. Moreover, they give good reason as to how we came to need the concept. These slices of aristocratic, self assured, lunacy have made me laugh so hard and loud that my family came to check on me, certain that I'd gone mad. It is hard for me to imagine that they would not affect everyone that way, but having followed what others considered their favorite humor, I no longer assume that mine is the universal touchstone.

The attitude of racial and class determination, is no where more honestly expressed than in this semi autobiographical two novel collection. The wife of a very dull former secretary to India put it well,"I think I may say we put India on the map. Hardly any of one's friends in England had even heard of India before we went there, you know." If you don't find that funny, you probably won't enjoy the book, which is very sad, because if it works, it's an absurdist's dream come true.

Light, funny, and engaging
Linda, the main character of The Pursuit Of Love, muses when she hears at long last from her lover, "Life...is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake and here is one of them." She might have been talking about this book. In contrast, these novels are rarely sad and never dull and are generously fruited with some delightfully comic moments.

A literary masterpiece? Not really. No great ideas are discussed, no dramatic themes explored. But for those who appreciate Wodehouse and Waugh, there is much here to enjoy.

Love in a not-so-cold climate
This pair of novels certainly don't exude coldness, in any way. They represent the 'autobiographical' novels of Nancy Mitford, and she spins her tales in a very warm and hysterically funny manner, demonstrating her unique skills as a novelist in a period when men tended to dominate the best-sellers lists. A contemporary of writers such as Waugh, Huxley, Greene, and other important names in the 'canon' of twentieth-century literature, Mitford's novels are far too often neglected. Which is a shame, as her richly coloured fictional tapestries reveal a great deal about the lives of the upper-classes, and from a genuinely humourous standpoint.

These novels will be enjoyed by readers who like the light social novels of Wodehouse, and more importantly, those of Evelyn Waugh. Waugh and Mitford were very close friends, and in his later years, Mitford was Waugh's primary object of correspondance, and their letters have since been collected and compiled in a single edition. Waugh's influence on Mitford is obvious - as her work is indeed in the same satiric vein as much of his - but less obvious and more intriguing is her influence on his work. Mitford's sharpness and quickness rival that of Waugh, and in these novels she almost outshines him, in the warmth and jollity of her satire.