Writer, born in London, UK, the sister of Diana, Jessica, and Unity Mitford. Educated at home, she established a reputation with her witty novels such as The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949). After the war she settled in France and wrote major biographies, including Madame de Pompadour (1953), Voltaire in Love (1957), and Frederick the Great (1970). As one of the essayists in Noblesse Oblige, edited by herself (1956), she popularized the famous U (upper-class) and non-U classification of linguistic usage and behaviour.
The Hon.
She was born in London, the eldest daughter of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale. She is 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 to roll on.
She was an essayist in Noblesse Oblige (1956), which famously helped to popularise the famous '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 bit of a tease and she certainly never took the matter seriously.
Nancy Mitford's gift as a comic writer and her humour are evident throughout her novels and also in the articles which she wrote for the London Sunday Times. She was a noted letter-writer and her correspondence has been published in Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford (1993) and in The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh (1996).
In 1933, after a going-nowhere romance with homosexual Scottish aristocrat Hamish St Clair-Erskine, she married The Hon.
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. The largely one-sided affair, which inspired the romance between Linda Kroesig 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, Duchess of Sagan (1915-2003), a beautiful socialite who was the former wife of Count James de Pourtalés and a granddaughter of American railroad magnate Jay Gould.
Based in Paris at 7 Rue Monsieur, she had a busy social and literary life and received countless guests visiting the city.
Nancy Mitford's public persona was remarkable: 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 very well known through her novels and newspaper articles and attracted a cult following.
Her novels, articles and biographies gave her a long-sought financial independence.
Nancy Mitford was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and a Knight in the Legion of Honour in 1972;
She is the subject of two biographies: Nancy Mitford: a Memoir by Harold Acton (1976) and Nancy Mitford: A Biography by Selena Hastings (1986).
After a long and painfull illness Nancy Mitford died of Hodgkin's Disease on 30 June 1973 in Versailles. Her remains were brought home to England and are interred in the Swinbrook Churchyard in Oxfordshire with those of her younger sisters, Unity Mitford (1914-1948), Diana, Lady Mosley (1910-2003) and Jessica (1917-1996).
She was the author of:
User Comments Add a comment…