HS Class in Britain
Prof. Ingrid von Rosenberg
Fri (2) GER 0054
Bio-Bibliography: Nancy Mitford
Nancy
Mitford (1904–1973): Satiric Novelist and Essayist
Nancy
Mitford, born on November 28th, 1904, was the oldest among the
seven children of David and Sydney Mitford. Both her parents came from a
highly distinguished background: David was the second Baron Redesdale and
Sydney´s father, Thomas Gibson Bowles, had been the founder of Vanity
Fair and The Lady. When Nancy was twelve, the family moved from
London to the family estate in Gloucestershire.
Nancy
received almost no formal education, but was taught French and other
subjects by governesses at home. In her later life, she sought to
compensate her lack of formal education by trying to educate herself
through reading and making friends among the intellectuals in London and
Paris. Once she even described herself as an intellectual snob. But
throughout her career as a writer her problems with punctuation and
spelling remained.
When
she left the schoolroom at the age of 18, Nancy led a very energetic
social life but also contributed articles to Vogue and The Lady.
During World War II she briefly worked as a bookshop assistant. Her first
novel, Highland Fling (1931) and the following ones stayed without
success. Only about fourteen years later, The Pursuit of Love about
some young aristocratic girls hoping to find the ideal husband became an
instant success and was probably read by every middle-class girl in
England at the time of its publication. It was followed by Love in a
Cold Climate in 1949. Both books are intensely autobiographical with
most of the characters drawn from real life. They vividly portray Nancy´s
own Cotswold childhood and the manners of the British aristocracy at that
time.
Among her five sisters Nancy was not the only one to become famous, but unlike them, she was the literary one and tried to stay out of politics. Apart from the youngest sister, Deborah, who became Duchess of Devonshire and Pamela, three of Nancy´s sisters were involved in some or other scandal during the 1930s. One of them, Unity, went to Germany and became part of Adolf Hitler´s inner circle. Diana married the notorious British fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the “British Union of Fascists”. And the third one, Jessica, left home at the age of 20 to live with Esmond Romilly, nephew of Winston Churchill. They joined the communists and worked for the republican cause in the Spanish civil war.
Instead
of politics, Nancy Mitford had to “battle for love”. Soon after
“coming out” she had fallen in love with another young aristocrat,
Hamish St Clair Erskine, but he left her after five years of
a chaotic relationship. Soon afterwards she married Peter Rodd, son
of an ambassador, in 1933. But the marriage was not a happy one and
divorce finally settled in 1957. Already in 1942, Nancy had met Colonel
Gaston Palewski who was working for the Free French Forces under Charles
De Gaulle in London. He was the love of her life, and after World War II
she followed him to Paris and –although he refused to marry her- settled
in France to be near him. Colonel Palewski remained her lover and source
of inspiration, providing the pattern for the fascinating French heroes of
her novels and in her biographies.
Nancy Mitford was a natural writer with witty and exceptional skills as a raconteur but also with a firm aristocratic perspective. In her satirical novels about English upper-class society she observed social manners in a subversive and brilliantly funny way. Her novels all contain autobiographical elements, and it seems as if she wrote not from imagination but from experience. Some critics have pointed towards the missing moral message and the frivolity of her books.
In
1956 Nancy Mitford established the differentiation between “U” and
“non-U” for upper class and non-upper class, respectively, with her
essay Noblesse Oblige. There, she wrote about the use of language
as an indicator of social class.
After
a long illness, Nancy Mitford died on June 30th, 1973 in
Versailles, France, when she was only 68.
Main
works:
The Pursuit of Love – 1945
Love
in a Cold Climate -
1949
The
Blessing -
1951
Don´t
tell Alfred
– 1960
Noblesse
Oblige –
1956
Biographies:
The
Sun King –
1966
Voltaire
in Love – 1957
Madame
de Pompadour –
1954
Frederick
the Great
– 1970
To
find out more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/author/mitford/
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1128.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/bookcase/mitford/index.shtml
by Anna- Maria Gramatté
Last Update: 04 Mai 02