Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters

Caryn James

Social celebrities in their day, the Mitfords remain fascinating because they intersected with so many 20th-century currents, from Nazism to the decline of the British aristocracy…Although the Mitfords' letters refer to some world-shaking events, their irresistible appeal comes from the way they invite us into the closed family circle.
—The New York Times

Mindy Aloff

These letters have been chosen with great care by Charlotte Mosley, daughter-in-law of Diana Mitford and editor of three anthologies of Nancy Mitford's writing. Happily, her choices provide an intriguing record of each sister's personality: their conflicting politics…their relationships to their parents…their affairs, divorces, affections…and personal cataclysms. The correspondence shows how, over time and under stress, charming youthful differences, including differences of literary expression, evolved into polarizing distinctions that both stretched and demonstrated the bonds of familial affection…Mosley introduces each decade with direct and dignified mini-histories, sprinkles family photographs and newspaper cuttings throughout, and adds indispensable short biographies of each sister along with a wealth of explanatory footnotes. These provide as much supplementary material as a contemporary reader might need to appreciate the social and political milieus in which the sisters moved.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

The six notorious and passionately opinionated daughters of the second Baron Redesdale knew many key figures of the 20th century, from Hitler and Churchill to Evelyn Waugh and Lucian Freud. The sisters wrote some 12,000 letters to each other over a span of 80 years-the last was a fax sent in 2003 by 83-year-old Deborah to the dying 93-year-old Diana-and 5% are included here. The turbulent years before and during WWII produced the most noteworthy correspondence: Jessica scandalized her family by running away with her Communist cousin, and Diana divorced a Guinness heir to marry British fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Anti-Semitic Unity gushes like a schoolgirl over Hitler and tells Jessica that she wouldn't hesitate to kill Jessica's Communist husband for Nazism-but in the meanwhile she hopes they can be friends. Nancy writes cheerily to the imprisoned Diana after secretly testifying against her during the war. In later years, Jessica irritated her sisters from her home in America and broke completely with Diana over political differences. Peppered with colorful nicknames, filled with love, encouragement, jealousy and gossip, and written primarily to amuse the recipients, the letters testify to the bonds of sisterhood. Diana's daughter-in-law has diligently edited the mammoth correspondence, although readers will need to fill in the gaps with Mitford biographies and memoirs. B&w illus. (Nov. 6)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Library Journal

The lost art of letter writing is splendidly portrayed in this massive volume of correspondence among the six Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. As editor Mosley, Diana's daughter-in-law, explains, "the sisters' enduring reputation owes much to their originality, forceful opinions, and good looks." Mosley drew from a vast archive of some 12,000 letters held by Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, the sole surviving sister. The letters she chose-most never before published-emphasize the relationships between and among the sisters. Arranged chronologically covering the years 1925-2002, they include footnotes identifying people, places, and activities. In introductions to each of the nine sections of letters, Mosley provides a synopsis of the major events in each sister's life as well as thoughtful commentary and analysis. As Mosley contends and the letters confirm, "the sisters wrote to each other to confide, commiserate, tease, rage and gossip but above all they wrote to amuse." Since four of them were published authors with international best sellers, it is not surprising that their letters are clever and humorous; but they are also poignant and revealing. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries. [For a profile of this book, see "Editors' Fall Picks," p. 32-38; see also Prepub Alert, LJ7/07.]
—Kathryn R. Bartelt

Kirkus Reviews

More than 800 pages of letters provide an engrossing, deeply personal group portrait of six idiosyncratic sisters whose political views varied as much as the trajectories of their famous-often notorious-lives. Daughters of the loopy Lord and Lady Redesdale, the Mitford girls first burst onto the English social scene as "bright young things" in the 1920s. Nancy, the eldest, was the family wit; she wrote a series of bestselling novels that captured their rarified milieu, among them The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949). Dazzling beauty Diana left her society marriage for Sir Oswald Mosley, a notorious rake who also happened to be leader of the British Fascist Union. Unity, too, embraced fascism while living abroad in Germany, becoming a friend and confidante of Hitler and Goebbels. She attempted suicide at the news of the outbreak of war and later died of complications from the bullet wound. Jessica, whose political leanings swung to the left, saved up her pocket money for years so she could elope with her communist cousin Esmond Romilly to Spain and fight the good fight in the Civil War; she became a bestselling author in her own right with Hons and Rebels (1960). Quiet, private Pamela was the "horsey" sister. Deborah, known as "Debo," became Duchess of Devonshire and keeper of the family flame. Debo's compelling flair for anecdote shines to particular advantage in this exhaustive collection, lovingly edited by Diana's daughter-in-law, but each letter is a thrilling gem unto itself, thanks to the sisters' individual cleverness. Marvelous fun, though the abundance of in-jokes and private language makes the book most enjoyable for readers already familiar with theMitford legend.

O Magazine

"Funny, loving, sparkly, snarky, heartbreaking, chilling, gossipy, wise….You’ll be rewarded with six up-close, personal-and sometimes appalling-takes on the 20th century."

O magazine

“Funny, loving, sparkly, snarky, heartbreaking, chilling, gossipy, wise….You’ll be rewarded with six up-close, personal-and sometimes appalling-takes on the 20th century.”

Wall Street Journal

"Fascinating...The sisters had the stiff upper lip of their class, and, it must be said, a way with words."

Newsday

"A splendid introduction to the eccentric charms of the Mitford world…On my short list of best books of the year."

New York Times Book Review

"Fascinating...Their irresistible appeal comes from the way they invite us into the close family circle."

Washington Post Book World

"THE MITFORDS could have been an operatic group biography on an epic scale: Instead, thanks to its editor’s taste and discretion, it is chamber music with symphonic longings… an intriguing record of each sister’s personality… all six could write evocatively, even hauntingly."

Baltimore Sun

"Marvelous...THE MITFORDS is quite simply one of the most sinful guilty pleasures of the season."

St. Petersburg Times

"Compelling…The letters are so affecting that it is difficult to refrain from wanting to get to know the sisters better."

Vogue

"Nothing captures their enduring allure quite like their own correspondence…With this epistolary testament to sisterhood, the mystery of the Mitfords...has at last been solved."

The Barnes & Noble Review

For much of the 20th century the six beautiful and variously gifted daughters of David Mitford, Lord Redesdale, appear again and again on the stage of world events. Two made their names with their pens: the eldest, Nancy, became the prolific and famed novelist and biographer; her younger sister Jessica, an ardent Communist, emigrated to the U.S. and rose to prominence as a journalist with her indelible The American Way of Death. The youngest, Deborah, married into the peerage, but for two of the sisters, ties to fascism would define their lives: Diana left her first husband for the charismatic British fascist Oswald Mosley and took her teenage sister, Unity, with her on a 1933 trip to Germany. Already a passionate follower of Mosley, Unity embarked on a personal quest to become acquainted with Hitler (she did). When war came, the devastated girl attempted suicide; meanwhile, Diana and her husband were imprisoned and effectively exiled from English society for the rest of their lives. This rich collection of the the sisters' correspondence (nicely choreographed by Diana's daughter-in-law Charlotte Mosley) brings to light their peculiar, passionate, often contradictory relationships -- frequently divided by their politics, the six nevertheless pined for letters from one another, and their betrayals and rivalries are chronicled here in their odd, cryptic private nursery language. Letters between Diana and Unity during the 1930s carry a particularly compelling, nightmarish edge. But the impact is in the whole, sprawling over decades, houses, politics, children, literary awards, and rude houseguests: a beguiling tangle of lives and personas, shot through with the brillance that made the Mitfords what they were. --Bill Tipper