Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, two of the twentieth century's most amusing and gifted writers, matched wits and exchanged insults in more than five hundred letters, a continuous irreverent dialogue that stretched for twenty-two years. Their delicious correspondence, much of it never published before (for fear of speaking ill of the living), provides colorful glimpses of both lives, testifies to their enduring but thorny friendship, and evokes the literary and social circles of London and Paris at midcentury. Waugh and Mitford both emerged from the group of London socialites known as the Bright Young Things, and both found best-selling success in the 1940s, Waugh with Brideshead Revisited, Mitford with The Pursuit of Love. In their letters they sharpened their wits at the expense of friends and enemies alike, but with particular relish they dissected their friends, who included Harold Acton, Graham Greene, the Sitwells, Duff and Diana Cooper, Randolph Churchill, and their favorite butt, Cyril Connolly. Waugh's pessimistic brand of Roman Catholicism clashed with Mitford's cheerful iconoclasms; her francophilia only fueled her friend's dislike of all things French. He accused her of bad grammar and worse theology; she nailed him with snobbery and anti-Semitism. "The letters between them," wrote Selina Hastings, Waugh's biographer, "... must be some of the most entertaining written this century." - Jacket flap.

"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 damp and chilly moor on a hunting expedition with formidable Lady Prague, xenophobic General Murgatroyd, one-eyed Admiral Wenceslaus, and an assortment of other ancient and gouty peers of the realm, while falling in love with Albert, a surrealist painter with a mischievous sense of humor. Lighthearted and sparkling with witty banter, Highland Fling was Mitford's first foray into the delightful fictional world for which the author of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate later became so celebrated. With an Introduction by Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey"-- "First novel by comic British novelist Nancy Mitford, first published in 1931, reissued with an introduction by Julian Fellowes"--

The Princess of Cleves is a French novel published in 1678 that is regarded as one of the first psychological novels. The plot is set in the royal court of Henry II of France.

Though the secret beneath Uley Kirkland's cap and mining togs is unsuspected in 1880s Tin Cup, Colorado, she longs to shed the clothing of deception...especially when handsome stranger Aaron Brown awakens her woman's heart. But while Uley dreams of being fitted for a wedding gown, the man she loves is being fitted for a hangman's noose, and she's the inadvertent cause of his troubles. The truth will set him free, and Uley will do whatever it takes to save Aaron's life—even risk her own.

This volume includes the novels: "Highland Fling," "Christmas Pudding," "Wigs on The Green," "Pigeon Pie," "The Pursuit of Love," "Love in a Cold Climate," "The Blessing" and "Don't Tell Alfred."

"How lovely - green velvet and silver. I call that a dream, so soft and delicious, too." She rubbed a fold of the skirt against her cheek. "Mine's silver lame, it smells like a bird cage when it gets hot but I do love it. Aren't you thankful evening skirts are long again?" Ah, the dresses! But oh, the monotony of the Season, with its endless run of glittering balls. Even fabulously fashionable Polly Hampton - with her startling good looks and excellent social connections - is beginning to wilt under the glare. Groomed for the perfect marriage by her mother, fearsome Lady Montdore, Polly instead scandalizes society by declaring her love for her uncle 'Boy' Dougdale, the Lecherous Lecturer, and promptly eloping to France. But the consequences of this union no one could quite expect . . . Love in a Cold Climate is the wickedly funny follow-up to The Pursuit of Love and explores the mystery of sexual attraction.

"I believe it would have been normal for me to have paid a visit to the outgoing ambassadress. However, the said ambassadress had set up such an uninhibited wail when she knew she was to leave, proclaiming her misery to all and sundry and refusing so furiously to look on the bright side, that is was felt she might not be very nice to me." Fanny is married to absent-minded Oxford don Alfred and content with her role as a plain, tweedy housewife with 'ghastly' clothes. But overnight her life changes when Alfred is appointed English Ambassador to Paris. In the blink of an eye Fanny's mixing with Royalty, Rothschilds and Dior-clad wives, throwing cocktail parties and having every indiscreet remark printed in tomorrow's papers. But with the love lives of her new friends to organize, an aristocratic squatter who won't budge and the antics of her maverick sons to thwart, Fanny's far too busy to worry about the diplomatic crisis looming on the horizon . . . Don't Tell Alfred continues the hilarious stories of characters Nancy Mitford introduced in The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate and The Blessing.

"Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie are two sparkling comedies from early in the career of Nancy Mitford, beloved author of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, here published in one volume with a new introduction by Jane Smiley. In Christmas Pudding, an array of colorful characters converge on the hunt-obsessed Lady Bobbin's country house, including her rebellious daughter Philadelphia, the girl's pompous suitor, a couple of children obsessed with newspaper death notices, and an aspiring writer whose serious first novel has been acclaimed as the funniest book of the year, to his utter dismay. In Pigeon Pie, set at the outbreak of World War II, Lady Sophia Garfield dreams of becoming a beautiful spy but manages not to notice a nest of German agents right under her nose, until the murder of her maid and kidnapping of her beloved bulldog force them on her attention, with heroic results. Delivered with a touch lighter than that of Mesitford's later masterpieces but no less entertaining, these comedies combine glamour, wit, and fiendishly absurd plots into irresistible literary confections"-- "Two early comic novels by British novelist Nancy Mitford, here combined in one volume with a new introduction by Jane Smiley"--