The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family - Hardcover

Lovell, Mary S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393010430 ISBN 13: 9780393010435

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2002

Synopsis

A powerful portrait of the humorous, eccentric, beautiful, and brilliant women known as the Mitfords who were shattered by the violent ideolgies of Europe between the wars follows Jessica, a Communist; Debo, the Duchess of Devonshire; Nancy, a best-selling novelist; Diana, who was the most hated woman in England; and Unity, who was obsessed with Adolf Hitler.

About this title

About the Author:

Mary S. Lovell is the author of acclaimed biographies of Richard and Isabel Burton, Amelia Earhart, and Beryl Markham, among others. She lives in Gloucestershire, England.

From Publishers Weekly:

In her history of England's Mitford sisters, who were major figures in the international political, literary and social scenes for much of the 20th century, Lovell (The Sound of Wings: The Biography of Amelia Earhart; etc.) rises with aplomb to the challenges of a group biography, deftly weaving together the narrative threads of six at times radically disparate lives to create a fascinating account of a fascinating family. Born into the ranks of the minor aristocracy and educated at home by eccentric and perennially cash-strapped parents, Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah Mitford hardly seemed the types whose exploits would generate endless fodder for the sensationalist press. But when Diana left her wealthy young husband to take up with and eventually marry Sir Oswald Mosley, infamous leader of British fascism; when Unity became close friends with Adolf Hitler and a proponent of Nazism; when Jessica, a vocal Communist, eloped with a notorious cousin who was also a nephew of Winston Churchill; when Deborah married the Duke of Devonshire; and when both Nancy (Love in a Cold Climate) and Jessica (The American Way of Death) became acclaimed, bestselling authors, the world responded with avid, insatiable and at times alarmingly intrusive curiosity. But whether adored or reviled by their public, all the Mitford sisters were engaged with (and at times embodiments of) the major social and political issues of their time. Lovell's account of the sisters' upbringing and their often tumultuous adult lives is as lively and engrossing as Nancy's heavily autobiographical fiction; the group biography also does a commendable job of separating the myths that fiction created from the sometimes more mundane realities of the Mitfords' activities and relationships. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0393010430
• ISBN 13: 9780393010435
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 611