Love from Nancy

by Nancy Mitford, Charlotte Mosley (Editor)

Nancy Mitford died in 1973 before she could write an autobiography. But she was one of the great letter writers of this century, and her sparkling correspondence to her famous family and to a wide circle of brilliant friends - Evelyn Waugh, Harold Acton, Robert Byron, Cyril Connolly, and Raymond Mortimer, among many others - sheds an extraordinary light on their lives and the times in which they lived.
Novelist, biographer, and journalist, Nancy was born in 1904 into a family that seemed always to he in Britain's headlines - and not only on the society pages. The eldest of Lord and Lady Redesdale's seven talented children (writer Jessica Mitford among them), Nancy immortalized their family life in her first bestseller, The Pursuit of Love. Her natural wit, fed by the frivolous 1920s, was undimmed by her political coming of age in the 1930s, or the courage and stoicism of wartime London. At war's end she moved to Paris, and her home there became "a congenial rendezvous of French and English letters," in the words of her friend Harold Acton. From this perch, Nancy wrote her daily correspondence, delighting in her adopted country and skewering pretension wherever she found it. Wildly funny and filled with outrageous gossip, Mitford's letters detail not only the foolishness and foibles of London and Parisian society, but also the more tragic story of an unhappy marriage and her often anguished affair with "the Colonel," a leading member of de Gaulle's government.
Love from Nancy is the first published collection of Nancy's correspondence. It draws on eight thousand letters spanning six decades, many dashed off with hardly a crossed-out word, all so full of verve that the writer seems to be at one's elbow. It includes an important selection of letters to Evelyn Waugh, her close friend and literary mentor. Whether asking Waugh what Roman Catholics believe awaits them in heaven or soliciting Field Marshal Montgomery's opinion of the latest Paris fashions, these letters give us Nancy Mitford at her provocative and teasing best.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, Memoir, Adult, British Literature, Autobiography

538 pages, Hardcover

First published September 16, 1993

About the author

Nancy Mitford, styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years. She was born at 1 Graham Street (now Graham Place) in Belgravia, London, the eldest daughter of Lord Redesdale, and was brought up at Asthall Manor in Oxfordshire. She was the eldest of the six controversial Mitford sisters.

She is best remembered for her series of novels about upper-class life in England and France, particularly the four published after 1945; but she also wrote four well-received, well-researched popular biographies (of Louis XIV, Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, and Frederick the Great). She was one of the noted Mitford sisters and the first to publicize the extraordinary family life of her very English and very eccentric family, giving rise to a "Mitford industry," which continues.

Reviews

[Barbara Mader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it must have been great fun to correspond with Nancy. This book took a good deal of time to read as I found myself jotting down the titles of various books, bits of history, names, etc. to investigate further, and the footnotes too took time.

April 2010: Re-reading. Such fun.

[Ginna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this, and it made me want to write letters! Especially on note paper with my family crest on it...

[Amy Warrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Face it, Nancy Mitford was often not a very nice person but her letters are so fun, I'd have tried to befriend her just to get her to write to me. I became interested in the Mitfords with a BBC dramatization of 'Love in a Cold Climate' which led to Nancy Mitford's books which led to her letters and those of her sisters... I can't imagine just coming to this book cold, without some previous acquaintance.

But I've had this book for years, in HARDCOVER no less, and still love to pick it up and open to any page. It was difficult the first time with all the footnotes (though they are fascinating too - who knew these people were divorcing and marrying each other with such frequency?) but it's still fun, and now I just skip them.

If you're interested in the Mitfords at all, this is a great read. But then, if you're interested in the Mitfords at all, you've probably already read it.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I initially started my dive down the Mitford rabbit hole because author Vivian Swift held up Nancy Mitford's letters as one of the three things everyone should experience in their life. To give some (necessary) context, I read a biography of the Mitford sisters first, and then started in on the letters.

Mitford is indeed a fabulous letter writer. She's funny, insightful, clever, and doesn't hold back what she's thinking (which sometimes comes across as cruelty). While I enjoyed reading her letters, they didn't enthrall me. The incredible number of footnotes necessary to understand the people and places she wrote about makes the book (which clocks in at over 500 pages) feel even denser than it is. It's the sort of book that is probably best savored, but unfortunately, when it's checked out on an interlibrary loan, one is forced to set a much less comfortable pace.

Overall, a worthwhile book. But I wonder if I would have preferred the collection that only includes her correspondence with Evelyn Waugh. That might have been a bit more manageable.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a volume of letters from author Nancy Mitford. Mitford is both charming and exasperating, especially from the viewpoint of 2020... she's sexist, she's racist, and she can be almost unbelievably callous to other people's suffering. But her writing is so delightful and sparkling that I could mostly forgive all of that. I really feel that reading Mitford's letters got me through election season 2020... it's a nice fat volume and because they were letters I could always go back to them when I wanted to read something charming. I adore Nancy Mitford's voice and her energetic style of writing. One other reason this was exasperating is that she has innumerable pet names for so many of her friends and family. I eventually stopped trying to get them all straight, my gosh, there were *so many* of them, some of her sisters had multiple pet names that didn't have any relation at all to one another, so very, very quirky. Mitford is unapologetically herself and I love her writing. Do admit!

[Margaret Conmey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book and Bath Tangle at same time as I was expecting to dip into letters a few at a time
I thought collection of one sided letters would be boring; also I wasn’t expecting such a large book but I read this cover -to - cover
Fascinating,brilliant writer ,amazing life and complex character

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every letter interesting. Her reputation is well deserved.

[Maureen S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh Naunce. I want you to be my favorite, but you are so nasty and complex, as your letters reveal. Loved this book, with some slight dragging/repetition in the 1950s that I skimmed.

[Janet Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could not put it down, engrossed from the start. Excellent read.

[Maryanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

took awhile to get through her earlier letters but thy improved.It was real eye opener into the upper classes of the UK and made me feel how little they actually live life they seemed ti float on the fringes without immersing themselves.Even Diana although married to Mosley,did not see the trye impact of fascism on the general population

[Starlight · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took awhile to read this book as it is a collection of letters before during and after ww2. A sound bite of how the middle class lived around this time, their family relationships, marriages and love affairs. It portrayed how emotionally disconnected they were to what was really going on in the world around them - particularly the suffering during the world war

[Jaylia3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, I am sad to finish this. Through her letters Nancy has been my companion for long enough that I will really miss her wit and company. Fortunately the book is full of post-its marking references to other authors I want to check out.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although they were extremely witty, the letters were lost on me.. they just left me feeling like I "just had to be there".

[Amy Hing-young · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable in parts - and nice gems historical insights crop up now and then.

[Richard Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading this for over a year, from Nancy's first letters as a child to her last letter before she died. It has been a great journey, probably never to be repeated.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good selection of letters. Always hard reading letters from the last years of her life, when she was unwell.