The writer and poet Harold Acton was - like Nancy Mitford herself - one of the Bright Young Things, and a life-long friend with whom she stayed in touch. From the letters and materials she had been gathering for her autobiography, Acton draws an irresistibly sparkling portrait of the author of Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, who was so unhappy in love herself. Full of her waspish wit, gossip, and the drops of acid she liked to pour on the pretensions of her time, Acton pain...

DISCOVER ALL EIGHT OF NANCY MITFORD'S SPARKLINGLY ASTUTE, HILARIOUS AND COMPLETELY UNPUTDOWNABLE NOVELS IN ONE COLLECTION - WITH AN INTRODUCTION FROM INDIA KNIGHTPublished over a period of 30 years, they provide a wonderful glimpse of the bright young things of the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties in the city and in the shires; firmly ensconced at home or making a go of it abroad; and what the upper classes really got up to in peace and in war.The col...

One of the funniest, sharpest novels about love and growing up ever written, Nancy Mitford's classic is now a major BBC and Prime Video series directed by Emily Mortimer and starring Lily James, Andrew Scott and Dominic West'He was the great love of her life you know.''Oh, dulling,' said my mother, sadly, 'One always thinks that. Every, every time.'Oh, the tedium of waiting to grow up! Longing for love, obsessed with weddings and sex, Linda ...

Love in a Cold Climate is the sequel to Nancy Mitford's bestselling novel The Pursuit of Love.'How lovely - green velvet and silver. I call that a dream, so soft and delicious, too.' She rubbed a fold of the skirt against her cheek. 'Mine's silver lame, it smells like a bird cage when it gets hot but I do love it. Aren't you thankful evening skirts are long again?'Ah, the dresses! But oh, the monotony of the Seaso...

The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford.Here in one volume are all eight of Nancy Mitford's sparklingly astute, hilarious and completely unputdownable novels: Highland Fling, Christmas Pudding, Wigs on the Green, Pigeon Pie, The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate, The Blessing and Don't Tell Alfred.Published over a period of 30 years, they provide a wonderful glimpse of the bright young things of the thirties, forties, f...

Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels casts a finely gauged net to capture perfectly the foibles and fancies of the English upper class, and includes an introduction by Philip Hensher in Penguin Modern Classics.Nancy Mitford's brilliantly witty, irreverent stories of the upper classes in pre-war London and Paris conjure up a world of glamour, gossip and decadence. In The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate and The Blessing, ...

Two sparkling comedies from early in the career of the beloved author of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, here published in one volume with a new introduction from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres. • “Exuberant...enjoyable skulduggery and shenanigans.” —The New York TimesIn Christmas Pudding, an array of colorful characters converge on the hunt-obsessed Lady Bobbin’s country house, including he...

Don't Tell Alfred is the wickedly funny sequel to Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate.'I believe it would have been normal for me to have paid a visit to the outgoing ambassadress. However the said ambassadress had set up such an uninhibited wail when she knew she was to leave, proclaiming her misery to all and sundry and refusing so furiously to look on the bright side, that it was felt she...

In Highland Fling—Nancy Mitford’s first novel, published in 1931—a set of completely incompatible and hilariously eccentric characters collide in a Scottish castle, where bright young things play pranks on their stodgy elders until the frothy plot climaxes in ghost sightings and a dramatic fire.Inspired in part by Mitford’s youthful infatuation with a Scottish aristocrat, her story follows young Jane Dacre to a shooting party at Dulloch Castle, where she tramps around a da...

Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford is a hilarious satire of the upper classes.Eugenia Malmains is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of Captain Jack and the Union Jackshirts; Noel and Jasper are both in search of an heiress (so much easier than trying to work for the money); Poppy and Marjorie are nursing lovelorn hearts; and the beautiful bourgeois Mrs Lace is on the prowl for someone near Eugenia's fabulous count...

The Blessing by Nancy MitfordIt isn't just Nanny who finds it difficult in France when Grace and her young son Sigi are finally able to join her dashing aristocratic husband Charles-Edouard after the war. For Grace is out of her depth among the fashionably dressed and immaculately coiffured French women, and shocked by their relentless gossiping and bedhopping. When she discovers her husband's tendency to lust after every pretty girl he se...

'Always be civil to the girls. You never know whom they might marry.' Nancy Mitford, from her introduction to The Princess de ClèvesWhen the young, beautiful Mademoiselle de Chartres comes to court, her primary objective is to find herself a husband. Upon her mother's recommendation, she accepts the advances of the Prince de Clèves, a rather average sort of a man. Unfortunately, soon after the wedding she finds herself to be in love with the dashing Duc de...