Hons and Rebels: The Mitford Family Memoir (W&N Essentials)

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Pamela and her husband, Nancy wrote, “had been heard to declare a) that all Jews in England should be killed and b) that the war should be stopped now ‘before we lose any more money. This sounds like a valuable slice of pre-war material – thanks for reading this one and writing about it so well. The Pursuit of Love was on my wish-list for a while but every time I considered it and read the blurb, got the feeling it was too depressing and moralising!

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This is a book about wanting life to start, about the fizzing adventure of being young, which I appreciate all the more now I’m no longer young myself. The war profoundly divided the Mitfords, Unity and Diana passionately proFranco, while Decca immediately became a committed Loyalist, determined somehow to leave England and join the fight in Spain.In childhood Decca was closest to the sisters nearest to her in age, Unity and Debo, with both of whom she racketed about, teasing and tormenting their elders. By the time I finished Letters Between Six Sisters, I felt I’d had more than enough (probably because once Nancy and Decca died, the letters were almost entirely Debo and Diana).

Selina Hastings | Jessica Mitford | Slightly Foxed literary

It must have been over a year later when we met again, Decca this time accompanied by her second husband, the campaigning leftwing lawyer Robert Treuhaft. The world is fundamentally reorganizing itself before our eyes, and in such a destabilizing moment, there is something useful in looking at a family who found its world, too, shifting and changing in ways none of them could have predicted. This is one of the best books I’ve read this year and if you’re at all interested in the Mitfords or what Britain was like before WW2, read it, read it! There is Nanny wringing her hands at the thought of Jessica eloping with only one set of undergarments; Lord Redesdale torturing Nancy’s young men early in the morning by shouting ‘Brains for Breakfast’; Jessica herself expelled from dancing class aged 9 for explaining the mechanics of making babies to little girls in organdie dresses.

The one whom I didn’t much like (besides Unity, obvs, though her regression after shooting herself is fascinating to see in letter-form) was Jessica.

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford: 9781590171103

Minor issues present such as mild cracking, inscriptions, inserts, light foxing, tanning and thumb marking. Moreover, she has had access to material which was not previously available, mainly Decca's correspondence, but also some unpublished letters from James Lees-Milne, who was a close friend of the family, and certain Mitford papers at Chatsworth. Although there's a strong undercurrent of seriousness throughout the book, it's submerged under downright hilariousness, crackling brash humor and enchanting turns-of-the-phrase.Decca’s relationship with her parents, always addressed as ‘Muv’ and ‘Farve’, was somewhat distant, her mother kind but emotionally detached, her father deeply eccentric, frequently exploding into terrifying rages. On the other hand, there is an undercurrent of deep frustration with her family, especially Nancy I think. Jessica Mitford (the fifth of the Mitford daughters) has brought a whole generation back to life in her autobiography…. Boards have some moderate edge wear, with slight bumping to corners and minor bumping to spine ends. Nancy’s later novels would divide critics, her earlier novels are considered trifles, and the literary biographies she turned to in the 1950s were admired on publication but are now little remembered.