Author: Nancy Mitford

Mitford was the eldest of the six sisters whose politics split a family across the whole of the thirties: Diana married Oswald Mosley, Unity attached herself to the German leadership and was brought home gravely injured when war broke out, Jessica ran away to the Spanish civil war and became a communist. Nancy wrote comedies out of it. The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate turn her father into Uncle Matthew, who hunts his children with bloodhounds. Her essay on U and non-U speech gave the English middle classes something new to be frightened of. She lived in Paris for most of her later life, in love with a French politician who did not marry her.