“Riveting. The Six captures all the wayward magnetism and levity that have enchanted countless writers without neglecting the tragic darkness of many of the sisters’ life choices and the savage sociopolitical currents that fueled them.” —Tina Brown, The New York Times Book Review
The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by John Betjeman; the third was a fascist who married Oswald Mosley; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire.
They were the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. Born into country-house privilege in the early years of the twentieth century, they became prominent as “bright young things” in the high society of interwar London. Then, as the shadows crept over 1930s Europe, the stark—and very public—differences in their outlooks came to symbolize the political polarities of a dangerous decade.
The intertwined stories of their stylish and scandalous lives—recounted in masterly fashion by Laura Thompson—hold up a revelatory mirror to upper-class English life before and after World War II.
LAURA THOMPSON is a writer and freelance journalist. She won the Somerset Maugham award for her first book,The Dogs, and is also the author of the critically acclaimed biography of Nancy Mitford, Life in a Cold Climate,Agatha Christie: An English Mystery (2007) and A Different Class of Murder: the Story of Lord Lucan (2014).
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
The Mitford Phenomenon 1
PART I. 27
PART II. 115
PART III. 207
PART IV. 287
Afterwards 333
Notes 353 Select Bibliography 369
Acknowledgements 371 Index 373 Picture Acknowledgements 387
We never stop making history; in just the first eight months of this year, enough has happened to inspire several new books. That isn’t to say we’ve exhausted the past: no matter how often a subject is covered, there’s always some fresh angle or unexplored detail. This month offers a healthy stack of notable new history books that do just that. Here are seven […]
