The writer and poet Harold Acton was - like Nancy Mitford herself - one of the Bright Young Things, and a life-long friend with whom she stayed in touch. From the letters and materials she had been gathering for her autobiography, Acton draws an irresistibly sparkling portrait of the author of Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, who was so unhappy in love herself. Full of her waspish wit, gossip, and the drops of acid she liked to pour on the pretensions of her time, Acton pain...

**Mitford’s most enduringly popular novel, The Pursuit of Love is a classic comedy about growing up and falling in love among the privileged and eccentric. Now an original series on Prime Video.“Mitford, describing in a tart and easy fashion the diverting activities of a titled English family, is mocking, good-tempered, and very funny.” —The New Yorker**Mitford modeled her characters on her own famously unconventional family. We are introduced to the Radle...

Two sparkling comedies from early in the career of the beloved author of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, here published in one volume with a new introduction from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres. • “Exuberant...enjoyable skulduggery and shenanigans.” —The New York TimesIn Christmas Pudding, an array of colorful characters converge on the hunt-obsessed Lady Bobbin’s country house, including he...

A sparkling romantic comedy that vividly evokes the lost glamour of aristocratic life in England between the wars.Polly Hampton has long been groomed for the perfect marriage by her mother, the fearsome and ambitious Lady Montdore. But Polly, with her stunning good looks and impeccable connections, is bored by the monotony of her glittering debut season in London. Having just come from India, where her father served as Viceroy, she claims to have hoped that society...

In Highland Fling—Nancy Mitford’s first novel, published in 1931—a set of completely incompatible and hilariously eccentric characters collide in a Scottish castle, where bright young things play pranks on their stodgy elders until the frothy plot climaxes in ghost sightings and a dramatic fire.Inspired in part by Mitford’s youthful infatuation with a Scottish aristocrat, her story follows young Jane Dacre to a shooting party at Dulloch Castle, where she tramps around a da...

The Blessing is one of Nancy Mitford’s most personal books, a wickedly funny story that asks whether love can survive the clash of cultures.When Grace Allingham, a naïve young Englishwoman, goes to live in France with her dashingly aristocratic husband Charles-Edouard, she finds herself overwhelmed by the bewilderingly foreign cuisine and the shockingly decadent manners and mores of the French. But it is the discovery of her husband’s French notion of marr...

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series. Please note that the eBook edition does NOT include access to the audio edition and digital book. Written for learners of English as a foreign language, each title includes carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises.Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to ...

In this delightful comedy, Fanny—the quietly observant narrator of Nancy Mitford’s two most famous novels—finally takes center stage.Fanny Wincham—last seen as a young woman in The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate—has lived contentedly for years as housewife to an absent-minded Oxford don, Alfred. But her life changes overnight when her beloved Alfred is appointed English Ambassador to Paris.Soon she finds herself mixing with roy...

Nancy Mitford’s most controversial novel, unavailable for decades, is a hilarious satirical send-up of the fascist political enthusiasms of her sisters Unity and Diana, and of her notorious brother-in-law, Sir Oswald Mosley.Written in 1934, early in Hitler’s rise, Wigs on the Green lightheartedly skewers the devoted followers of British fascism. The sheltered and unworldy Eugenia Malmain is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of General Jack and his...

BBC Radio adaptations of Nancy Mitford's most famous novels and acclaimed biography of Madame de Pompadour plus bonus programmesThe eldest of the notorious Mitford sisters, Nancy Mitford was renowned for her comic novels of upper-class life. An aristocrat and socialite, she mingled with the 'Bright Young Things' in interwar London, and went on to satirise their foibles in razor-sharp, wickedly funny prose. Collected here are adaptations of her two bestsellers, the ...

An intimate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Diana Mosley was a frequent guest at their parties in Paris, or at 'the Moulin' in Orsay, where they were neighbours. Written in her inimitable style Diana Mosley paints a remarkable portrait of her friend that is also realistic with regards to her flaws. What was it about her that utterly captivated the heir to the throne and made him renounce it when he became King? It is this question which Diana Mosley seeks to answer and which she is per...

Based on unpublished letters and diaries, The Viceroy's Daughters is a riveting portrait of three spirited and wilful women who were born at the height of British upper-class wealth and privilege.The oldest, Irene, never married but pursued her passion for foxes, alcohol, and married men. The middle, Cimmie, was a Labour Party activist turned Fascist. And Baba, the youngest and most beautiful, possessed an appetite for adultery that was as dangerous as it was outrageous.