Nancy Mitford
Encyclopedia
Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE
(28 November 1904, London – 30 June 1973, Versailles), 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 somewhat notorious and controversial Mitford sisters.
, Voltaire
, and Frederick the Great). She was one of the noted Mitford sisters and the first to publicise the extraordinary family life of her very English and very eccentric family, giving rise to a "Mitford industry" which continues.
(1956), which helped to popularise the "U", or upper-class, and "non-U" classification of linguistic usage and behaviour (see U and non-U English
) — although this is something she saw as a tease and she certainly never took seriously. However, the media have frequently portrayed her as the snobbish inventor and main preserver of this usage. She is credited as editor of the book but in fact the project was organised by the publishers. One of her novels, The Pursuit of Love
, had been used by Professor Alan Ross
, the actual inventor of the phrase, as an example of upper-class linguistic usage.
. In the 1950s and 1960s these articles made her appear to be England's expert on aspects of life across Europe. In 1986 her niece by marriage Charlotte Mosley edited some of these works in: A Talent to Annoy; Essays, Journalism and Reviews 1929–1968. She was a noted letter-writer and her correspondence has been edited by her niece as: Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford (1993) and in The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh (1996); also The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street
: Letters between Nancy Mitford and Heywood Hill 1952–73 (2004). Her letters and essays are notable for their humour, irony and cultural and social breadth.
Politically a moderate socialist, she somehow kept on good terms most of the time with her sisters, despite the extreme political views of Diana, Jessica and Unity, mainly by deploying her acerbic wit. Some of the sisters' letters are published in The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters
(2007).
, nicknamed "Prod", the youngest son of Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell
. The marriage was a failure; her husband was unfaithful and couldn't keep a job; in time Nancy took over the family finances, working in the bookshop G. Heywood Hill, and was unfaithful in her turn. Though the Rodds separated in 1939, they continued to see one another on a purely friendly basis, and Rodd used her Paris flat as an occasional base. She also gave him financial assistance from time to time. They were divorced in 1958 (although Nancy is described as "the wife of Peter Rodd" on her headstone).
The turning-point in Nancy's hitherto very English existence was her meeting with French soldier and politician Colonel Gaston Palewski
(Charles de Gaulle
's Chief of Staff), whom she always called "Colonel" and with whom she had a relationship in London during the war. At the end of the Second World War she moved to Paris to be near him. The largely one-sided affair, which inspired the romance between Linda Talbot (née Radlett) and Fabrice de Sauveterre in Mitford's novel The Pursuit of Love, lasted fitfully until Palewski's affair with and eventual 1969 marriage to Violette de Talleyrand-Périgord, the Duchesse de Sagan.
Nancy Mitford's public persona was notable: she was invariably elegantly dressed (often by Dior or Lanvin), she lived a hectic social life, and was a well-known public personality in the United Kingdom even though she lived in Paris. She had a particular "Mitford" brand of humour which became well known through her novels and newspaper articles and attracted a cult following. Her "teases" were famous, including a description in a Sunday Times article of Rome as a village centred on the vicarage, one post office and one train station. The posthumous publication of her letters has enhanced her reputation.
Her novels, articles and biographies gave her a long-sought financial independence. Financial worries, and in particular the need to provide for her old age, had been (especially in earlier years) a constant concern. In 1967 she moved from Paris to 4 rue d'Artois in Versailles where she bought a house, but which isolated her from the life she had established in Paris. The owners of her Paris apartment needed it back for their children and she wanted a garden. Her friends who might visit her in Paris were dying; Evelyn Waugh
in 1966. Her relationship with Palewski was cooling. From her biography of Louis XIV she also knew Versailles very well.
In her last four and a half years she endured increasing and finally unbearable pain due to cancer, which was slow to be diagnosed. She refused to complain, but the pain caused her to lose her faith in God.
and an Officer in the French Legion of Honour in 1972. It was Palewski who formally invested her, presenting her with the latter decoration, when she was already fatally ill. She died of Hodgkin's Disease
on 30 June 1973 in Versailles. Palewski was with her on the day of her death. Her remains were brought home to England and are interred in the churchyard of St Mary's parish church at Swinbrook
in Oxfordshire
with those of her younger sisters, Unity Mitford
(1914–1948) and Diana Mitford
(1910–2003).
She is the subject of several biographies, including: Nancy Mitford: a Memoir by Harold Acton
(1976), Nancy Mitford: A Biography by Selena Hastings (1986) and Life in a Cold Climate by Laura Thompson
(2003).
television series' episode "She
", a reference is made about a flower called "Nancy's Petticoat" and how it was named after Nancy Mitford. In reality, there is no flower named after Mitford.http://www.trinityofiniquity.com/screening/sr_s1e13.htm Mitford was hired by Ealing Studios to work on the script of what became Kind Hearts and Coronets
, but none of her writing survived in the final film.
Pamela Mitford (25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994)
Thomas Mitford (2 January 1909 – 30 March 1945)
Diana Mitford
(17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003)
Unity Mitford
(8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948)
Jessica Mitford
(11 September 1917 – 22 July 1996)
Deborah Mitford
(born 31 March 1920)
(Mitford edited these two volumes of letters, written by the family of her great-grandparents, Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley
and his wife Henrietta Maria, daughter of the 13th Viscount Dillon
).
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(28 November 1904, London – 30 June 1973, Versailles), styled The Hon.
The Honourable
The prefix The Honourable or The Honorable is a style used before the names of certain classes of persons. It is considered an honorific styling.-International diplomacy:...
Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People
Bright Young People
The Bright Young People was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London. They threw elaborate fancy dress parties, went on elaborate treasure hunts through nighttime London, and drank heavily and experimented with drugs—all of which...
on the London social scene in the inter-war years. She was born at 1 Graham Street (now Graham Place) in Belgravia
Belgravia
Belgravia is a district of central London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Noted for its immensely expensive residential properties, it is one of the wealthiest districts in the world...
, London, the eldest daughter of Lord Redesdale and was brought up at Asthall Manor
Asthall Manor
Asthall Manor is a gabled Jacobean Cotswold manor house in Asthall, Oxfordshire. It was built in about 1620 and altered and enlarged in about 1916The house was the childhood home of the Mitford sisters.-History:...
in Oxfordshire. She was the eldest of the six somewhat notorious and controversial Mitford sisters.
Novelist and biographer
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 PompadourMadame de Pompadour
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, also known as Madame de Pompadour was a member of the French court, and was the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to her death.-Biography:...
, Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, and Frederick the Great). She was one of the noted Mitford sisters and the first to publicise the extraordinary family life of her very English and very eccentric family, giving rise to a "Mitford industry" which continues.
U and non-U
She wrote an essay in Noblesse ObligeNoblesse Oblige (book)
Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy is a 1956 book by Nancy Mitford, illustrated by Osbert Lancaster and published by Hamish Hamilton. It was repeatedly reprinted. The book helped popularise the U and non-U English classification of...
(1956), which helped to popularise the "U", or upper-class, and "non-U" classification of linguistic usage and behaviour (see U and non-U English
U and non-U English
U and non-U English usage, with U standing for upper class, and non-U representing the aspiring middle classes, were part of the terminology of popular discourse of social dialects in 1950s Britain and New England. The debate did not concern itself with the speech of the working classes, which in...
) — although this is something she saw as a tease and she certainly never took seriously. However, the media have frequently portrayed her as the snobbish inventor and main preserver of this usage. She is credited as editor of the book but in fact the project was organised by the publishers. One of her novels, The Pursuit of Love
The Pursuit of Love
The Pursuit of Love is a novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1945. It is the first in a trilogy about an upper-class family in the period between the wars...
, had been used by Professor Alan Ross
Alan S C Ross
Alan Strode Campbell Ross was a British academic specialising in linguistics. He is best remembered as the ultimate source and inspiration for Nancy Mitford's 'U and non-U' forms of behaviour and language usage....
, the actual inventor of the phrase, as an example of upper-class linguistic usage.
Letters, journalism and essays
Nancy Mitford's gift as a comic writer and her humour are evident throughout her novels and also in the many articles which she wrote for the London Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
. In the 1950s and 1960s these articles made her appear to be England's expert on aspects of life across Europe. In 1986 her niece by marriage Charlotte Mosley edited some of these works in: A Talent to Annoy; Essays, Journalism and Reviews 1929–1968. She was a noted letter-writer and her correspondence has been edited by her niece as: Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford (1993) and in The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh (1996); also The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street
Curzon Street
Curzon Street is located within the exclusive Mayfair district of London. The street is located entirely within the W1J postcode district and is 400 yards to the north west of Green Park tube station...
: Letters between Nancy Mitford and Heywood Hill 1952–73 (2004). Her letters and essays are notable for their humour, irony and cultural and social breadth.
Politically a moderate socialist, she somehow kept on good terms most of the time with her sisters, despite the extreme political views of Diana, Jessica and Unity, mainly by deploying her acerbic wit. Some of the sisters' letters are published in The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters is a 2007 book of selected letters between the legendary Mitford sisters. The book was edited by Diana Mitford's daughter-in-law, Charlotte Mosley. An estimated five percent of letters between the six sisters were included in the 834 page publication...
(2007).
Romantic life
In 1933, after a going-nowhere romance with homosexual Scottish aristocrat Hamish St Clair-Erskine, she married The Hon. Peter RoddPeter Rodd
Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Murray Rennell Rodd was a younger son of Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell.He was educated at Wellington College and Balliol College, Oxford. On 4 December 1933 he was married to the Hon. Nancy Mitford, one of the noted Mitford sisters...
, nicknamed "Prod", the youngest son of Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell
Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell
James Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC , known as Sir Rennell Rodd before 1933, was a British diplomat, poet and politician...
. The marriage was a failure; her husband was unfaithful and couldn't keep a job; in time Nancy took over the family finances, working in the bookshop G. Heywood Hill, and was unfaithful in her turn. Though the Rodds separated in 1939, they continued to see one another on a purely friendly basis, and Rodd used her Paris flat as an occasional base. She also gave him financial assistance from time to time. They were divorced in 1958 (although Nancy is described as "the wife of Peter Rodd" on her headstone).
The turning-point in Nancy's hitherto very English existence was her meeting with French soldier and politician Colonel Gaston Palewski
Gaston Palewski
Gaston Palewski , French politician, was a close associate of Charles de Gaulle during and after World War II. He is also remembered as the lover of the English novelist Nancy Mitford, and appears in a fictionalised form in two of her novels.-Biography:Palewski was born in Paris, the son of an...
(Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
's Chief of Staff), whom she always called "Colonel" and with whom she had a relationship in London during the war. At the end of the Second World War she moved to Paris to be near him. The largely one-sided affair, which inspired the romance between Linda Talbot (née Radlett) and Fabrice de Sauveterre in Mitford's novel The Pursuit of Love, lasted fitfully until Palewski's affair with and eventual 1969 marriage to Violette de Talleyrand-Périgord, the Duchesse de Sagan.
Life in Paris and Versailles
Based in Paris in an apartment at 7 rue Monsieur, VII, Mitford had a busy social and literary life and received countless guests visiting the city. She had a huge number of friends and acquaintances in the English, French and Italian aristocracies, as well as in the international set in Paris. She travelled frequently and established a pattern of visits to country houses in England, Ireland and France as well as annual visits to Venice. Although much of her life was spent in France, she remained English to the core in her beliefs and attitudes.Nancy Mitford's public persona was notable: she was invariably elegantly dressed (often by Dior or Lanvin), she lived a hectic social life, and was a well-known public personality in the United Kingdom even though she lived in Paris. She had a particular "Mitford" brand of humour which became well known through her novels and newspaper articles and attracted a cult following. Her "teases" were famous, including a description in a Sunday Times article of Rome as a village centred on the vicarage, one post office and one train station. The posthumous publication of her letters has enhanced her reputation.
Her novels, articles and biographies gave her a long-sought financial independence. Financial worries, and in particular the need to provide for her old age, had been (especially in earlier years) a constant concern. In 1967 she moved from Paris to 4 rue d'Artois in Versailles where she bought a house, but which isolated her from the life she had established in Paris. The owners of her Paris apartment needed it back for their children and she wanted a garden. Her friends who might visit her in Paris were dying; Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
in 1966. Her relationship with Palewski was cooling. From her biography of Louis XIV she also knew Versailles very well.
In her last four and a half years she endured increasing and finally unbearable pain due to cancer, which was slow to be diagnosed. She refused to complain, but the pain caused her to lose her faith in God.
Awards
She was made a Commander of the Order of the British EmpireOrder of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
and an Officer in the French Legion of Honour in 1972. It was Palewski who formally invested her, presenting her with the latter decoration, when she was already fatally ill. She died of Hodgkin's Disease
Hodgkin's lymphoma
Hodgkin's lymphoma, previously known as Hodgkin's disease, is a type of lymphoma, which is a cancer originating from white blood cells called lymphocytes...
on 30 June 1973 in Versailles. Palewski was with her on the day of her death. Her remains were brought home to England and are interred in the churchyard of St Mary's parish church at Swinbrook
Swinbrook
Swinbrook is a village on the River Windrush, east of Burford in Oxfordshire, England. The village is in the civil parish of Swinbrook and Widford.-History:...
in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
with those of her younger sisters, Unity Mitford
Unity Mitford
Unity Valkyrie Mitford was a member of the aristocratic Mitford family, tracing its origins in Northumberland back to the 11th century Norman settlement of England. Unity Mitford's sister Diana was married to Oswald Mosley, leader of British Union of Fascists...
(1914–1948) and Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley , was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the...
(1910–2003).
She is the subject of several biographies, including: Nancy Mitford: a Memoir by Harold Acton
Harold Acton
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton CBE was a British writer, scholar and dilettante perhaps most famous for being wrongly believed to have inspired the character of "Anthony Blanche" in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited...
(1976), Nancy Mitford: A Biography by Selena Hastings (1986) and Life in a Cold Climate by Laura Thompson
Laura Thompson
Laura Thompson is a Canadian musician and music columnist for CBC Newsworld's daily arts wrap, CBC News: The Scene.Thompson is also a producer on The Scene and a member of Toronto-based pop band The Good Soldiers.-External links:*...
(2003).
Legacy
In the AngelAngel (TV series)
Angel is an American television series, a spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffys creator, Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt, and first aired on October 5, 1999...
television series' episode "She
She (Angel episode)
"She" is episode 13 of season 1 in the television show Angel. Written by Marti Noxon and directed by David Greenwalt, it was originally broadcast on February 8, 2000 on the WB network...
", a reference is made about a flower called "Nancy's Petticoat" and how it was named after Nancy Mitford. In reality, there is no flower named after Mitford.http://www.trinityofiniquity.com/screening/sr_s1e13.htm Mitford was hired by Ealing Studios to work on the script of what became Kind Hearts and Coronets
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British black comedy feature film. The plot is loosely based on the 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman, with the screenplay written by Robert Hamer and John Dighton and the film directed by Hamer...
, but none of her writing survived in the final film.
Mitford siblings
Nancy Mitford (28 November 1904 - 30 June 1973)Pamela Mitford (25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994)
Thomas Mitford (2 January 1909 – 30 March 1945)
Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley , was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the...
(17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003)
Unity Mitford
Unity Mitford
Unity Valkyrie Mitford was a member of the aristocratic Mitford family, tracing its origins in Northumberland back to the 11th century Norman settlement of England. Unity Mitford's sister Diana was married to Oswald Mosley, leader of British Union of Fascists...
(8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948)
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters...
(11 September 1917 – 22 July 1996)
Deborah Mitford
Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Deborah Vivien Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire DCVO , née The Hon. Deborah Freeman-Mitford is the youngest and last surviving of the six noted Mitford sisters whose political affiliations and marriages were a prominent feature of English culture in the 1930s and 1940s...
(born 31 March 1920)
Novels
- Highland Fling (1931)
- Christmas Pudding (1932)
- Wigs on the GreenWigs on the GreenWigs on the Green is a novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1935. A merciless satire of British Fascism, the book is notable for lampooning the political enthusiasms of Mitford's sisters Unity Mitford and Diana Mosley...
(1935) - Pigeon PiePigeon piePigeon pie is a a traditional French savory game pie made of pigeon meat and various other ingredients. It has been eaten at least as early as 1670.In Morocco it is called Bastila....
(1940) - The Pursuit of LoveThe Pursuit of LoveThe Pursuit of Love is a novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1945. It is the first in a trilogy about an upper-class family in the period between the wars...
(1945) - Love in a Cold ClimateLove in a Cold ClimateLove in a Cold Climate is a novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1949. The title is a direct quotation from George Orwell's novel Keep The Aspidistra Flying .-Plot summary:...
(1949) - The BlessingThe BlessingThe Blessing is a comic satirical novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1951.-Plot summary:It is set in the post-war World War II period and concerns Grace, an English country girl who moves to France after falling for a dashing aristocratic Frenchman named Charles-Edouard who lusts after...
(1951) - Don't Tell AlfredDon't Tell AlfredDon't Tell Alfred is a novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1960 by Hamish Hamilton. It is the third in a trilogy centered around an upper-class English family, and takes place twenty years after the events of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate.-Plot:As in the previous novels,...
(1960)
Non-Fiction
- Madame de Pompadour (1954)
- Voltaire in LoveVoltaire in LoveVoltaire in Love is a popular history of the sixteen-year relationship between Voltaire and the Marquise du Châtelet. Written by Nancy Mitford and first published in 1957, the book also explores the French enlightenment....
(1957) - The preface to Saint-Simon at Versailles by Lucy Norton (1958)
- The Water Beetle (1962)
- The Sun King (1966)
- Frederick the Great (1970)
- A Talent to Annoy; Essays, Journalism and Reviews 1929–1968 edited by Charlotte Mosley (1986)
Collections of Letters
- Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford edited by Charlotte Mosley (1993)
- The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh edited by Charlotte Mosley (1996)
- The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street: Letters between Nancy Mitford and Heywood Hill 1952–73 edited by John Saumarez Smith (2004)
- The Mitfords: Letters Between Six SistersThe Mitfords: Letters Between Six SistersThe Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters is a 2007 book of selected letters between the legendary Mitford sisters. The book was edited by Diana Mitford's daughter-in-law, Charlotte Mosley. An estimated five percent of letters between the six sisters were included in the 834 page publication...
edited by Charlotte Mosley (2007)
Works as Editor
- The Ladies of Alderley: Letters 1841–1850 (1938)
- The Stanleys of Alderley: Their letters 1851–1865 (1939)
(Mitford edited these two volumes of letters, written by the family of her great-grandparents, Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley
Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley
Edward John Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley PC , known as The Lord Eddisbury between 1848 and 1850, was a British politician.-Background:...
and his wife Henrietta Maria, daughter of the 13th Viscount Dillon
Henry Dillon, 13th Viscount Dillon
Henry Augustus Dillon-Lee, 13th Viscount Dillon was an Irish peer, writer and MP for Harwich and for County Mayo.His daughter Henrietta Maria married Edward John Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley.- Biography :...
).
- Noblesse ObligeNoblesse Oblige (book)Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy is a 1956 book by Nancy Mitford, illustrated by Osbert Lancaster and published by Hamish Hamilton. It was repeatedly reprinted. The book helped popularise the U and non-U English classification of...
(1956)