Category: BIOGRAPHY
Guide Created By: Traude S.
Discussion Leader(s): Traude S.
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Guide Description

Background Information

The Mitford sisters were remarkable, in every sense of the word: funny, glamorous, intelligent, beautiful, and quirky. But their individual fates were quite different. Debo became a duchess. Jessica became a Communist. Diana married a fascist and was thrown in jail for most of WWII. Unity developed an unhealthy obsession with Hitler. And, of course, Nancy became a successful novelist. In this eye-opening look at the most eccentric of families, biographer Mary Lovell captures the unique spirit that was a hallmark of their times. From the Editors at Barnes and Noble: Source This family biography describes the ultimately tragic effects of competing ideologies - Communist, Royalist, Fascist - on a twentieth-century English family and traces the family's ancestry and fate, epoch by epoch, from 1894 to 2000. Particular attention is paid to the period from 1929 to 1947. Four of the Mitford Sisters became best-selling authors : Nancy, Diana, Jessica (known as Decca), and Deborah (Debo). (Information source: Booknews) Discussion Leader: Traude

Bibliography of Author's works

Other Books by Mary S. Lovell A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton Straight on till Morning:The Biography of Beryl Markham

Critical Reviews

From the Critics: New York Times Book Review: “Lovell takes no sides and, what is truly remarkable, keeps track of all six lives at once.” Carolyn G. Heilbrun: “A tour de force that works ... a theatrical extravaganza.” San Francisco Chronicle: “A rivetingly intimate history lesson.”

Questions

Questions 1. What do you see as possible reasons why the six beautiful Mitford sisters, raised in a conventional British upper class household, attained a prominence that has lasted for more than sixty years? 2. Was their family significantly more eccentric than that of their contemporaries? 3. What made this family extraordinary compared with their relatives and friends? 4. Do you think the girls’ upbringing molded them and, if so, to what extent? 5. Do you see any irony in the fact that the girls were raised in a free-wheeling fashion and encouraged to voice their opinions, but largely left to their own devices in the care of nannies and governesses in a closed environment they called “fortress”? 6. Do you think their invention of a private language only they understood was born of their virtual isolation or possibly a self-defense mechanism? 7. Is there something funny about the family’s habit of bestowing nicknames on everyone around, man and beast? 8. Do you believe the rigidity of the blustering father and the emotional detachment of the undemonstrative mother had a lasting efffect on the sisters and one brother? 9. Why do you think Nancy, Diana, Unity and Decca felt more loved by and more comfortable with Nanny Blor than their own mother? 10. How do you perceive the mother’s adhering to specific dietary rules for the girls and their brother, even as the father was exempt and ate food forbidden to them with great relish? 11. What do you think of emergency surgery performed on the kitchen table because of the mother’s shunning doctors in the firm belief that “the good body” would heal itself? 12. Were the parents insensitive, short-sighted or just following prevailing customs in not allowing the girls to attend regular school even as the only brother was sent to boarding school at age 8? 13. Is it possible that these and other restrictions laid the seeds for Decca’s rebellion and were the reason why four of the sisters couldn’t wait to “break out” of the “fortress”? 14. How do you view Nancy’s relentless teasing and pranks ? Do you think she was just a joker, a sharp wit and deadly funny, or was there a touch of malice, even cruelty, and envy? 15. How is it possible that four sisters in their teens espoused radically different political orientations, affiliations and loyalties? 16. Were the Mitfords anti-semitic? What could have been the root of anti-semitism, and how wide-spread was it in British society at the time? 17. Was Unity simply naive and besotted with Hitler, or did she have evil intentions? 18. Was Diana considered a security risk and incarcerated for 3 1/2 years because she was married to Sir Oswald Mosley, the controversial leader of the British Union of Fascists, or because she knew Hitler personally and had traveled to Germany often before the war? 19. Do you think the suspension of habeas corpus and the jailing of people without charge and without trial for an unspecified period of time is justified in times of war? 20. Do you believe Unity and Diana were traitors? 21. How do you feel about Decca, the future muckraker and author of The American Way of Death? 22. Did Decca become estranged from her family solely to please her first husband, Esmond Romilly, with whom she emigrated to America? 23. Decca’s life-long resentment toward her parents for denying her an education is well documented. But how do you feel about the unflattering, exaggerated portrait she has painted of them in her early memoir Daughters and Rebels ? 24. For that matter, what is your feeling about Nancy’s best known books, The Pursuit of Happiness and Love in a Cold Climate,both heavily autobiographical? 25. If one single over-riding factor was responsible for the rift in the Mitford family and the lasting enmity between Decca and Diana, was it politics? Was it the violence of WWII and its aftermath? Or just another all-too-common human story? 26. Do you see the undemonstrative mother as the (surprising) heroine and only winner in this tragedy that is truly of Greek proportions?

Recommended Reading

Recommended Reading: A Life of Contrasts by Diana Mitford Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford The Pursuit of Happiness by Nancy Mitford Daughters and Rebels aka Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford Diana Mosley by Jan Dalley The Biography of Unity Mitford by David Pryce-Jones House of Mitford : Portrait of a Family by Jonathan and Catherine Guinness (1985) (Jonathan is Diana's older son) Mitford Family Album by Sophia Murphy Rules of the Game Beyond the Pale : Memoirs of Sir Oswald Mosley and Family by Nicholas Mosley (his older son from his first marriage to Cynthia called Cimmie). Accounts of the Mitford family were also written by Jonathan Guiness, Diana's oldest son from her brief marriage to Brian Guinness; and Charlotte Mosley, the wife of Alexander Mosley, Diana's oldest son with Sir Oswald, has edited two volumes of Nancy's correspondence : one of these containing exclusively her letters to Evelyn Waugh.

Interesting Information

Interesting Websites Pictures of Asthall and the Windrush River (Ref.:- Page 58) || Fettiplace Monuments, St. Mary’s Church, Swinbrook, Oxfordshire || The church the Mitfords attended in Swinbrook, Oxfordshire, St. Mary’s Church || CHARTWELL. Where Diana stayed with the Churchills || Frederick Lindemann (92) who suggested to Diana that she learn German and read German classics|| Phoenix Park near where Diana was mistress of Knockmaroon (102) || Chatsworth || Oswald Mosley pictures || Oswald Mosley at Olympia, a 1934 article || What Decca said about her family || Article about Unity Mitford's suicide attempt by the Duchess of Devonshire || Decca sings. Click "Decca the Diva" at the left || Hitler Timeline || About Bob Treuhaft, Decca's husband || St. Mary's Church || A picture of Nancy Mitford from a German web page || An excerpt from The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford || Lord Berners' folly || Bolton Abbey Estate || David, Lord Redesdale's Batsford Arboretum and estate in Gloucestershire || Inch Kenneth, the island David bought in the Hebrides || Englischer Garten, Munich, where Unity shot herself. Click small pictures to see larger ones. || Diana Mosley || The Duchess, Deborah Mitford