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The House of Mitford
by
The classic story of one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary families.
Among the six daughters and one son born to David, second Lord Redesdale, and his wife Sydney were Nancy, the novelist and historian; Diana, who married fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley; Unity, friend of Hitler; Jessica, who became a communist and then an investigative journalist; and Deborah, ...more
Among the six daughters and one son born to David, second Lord Redesdale, and his wife Sydney were Nancy, the novelist and historian; Diana, who married fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley; Unity, friend of Hitler; Jessica, who became a communist and then an investigative journalist; and Deborah, ...more
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Paperback, 624 pages
Published
November 4th 2004
by Phoenix
(first published July 24th 1985)
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Since reading Nancy Mitford's "The Pursuit of Love" and Decca Mitford's "Hons and Rebels", I've been fascinated with Mitford sisters. Born into a family of old-fashioned, deeply traditional British landed gentry amidst the upheavals of the 20th century, the sisters developed along wildly different paths. Nancy became a pleasure-loving, bohemian "Bright Young Thing" and eventually an author; Decca became a Communist, running off to help the Spanish Republic and eventually working as leftist journ
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I willed myself on through this book, reading closely for bits I didn't know, but it was uphill work. The writing was terrible: horrible style, lack of organization, lousy paragraph structure, pathetic transitions, repeated cliches, clumsy phrasing, etc., etc. The heavy-handed attempts to put Diana in a good light also grated after a while. Lovell's book is much better. Despite my interest in the subject, I barely got through this.
Must add that the Guinnesses (those who wrote this) don't sound v ...more
Must add that the Guinnesses (those who wrote this) don't sound v ...more
After this sitting considerably far down my Mitford history reading list, I was taken by its erudition. My expectations were cynical, knowing it was penned by family insiders: author Jonathon Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne, is the eldest son of Diana Mitford Mosley by her first husband Bryan Guinness; his co-author is his daughter the Hon. Catherine Guinness. My tainted expectations could not have been wider off the mark.
Not only is there a marked absence of family bias, but the wordsmithing outshine ...more
Not only is there a marked absence of family bias, but the wordsmithing outshine ...more
I'm a bit obsessed with the Mitfords but this book was boring. It suffers from the fact that the author is a nephew of the sisters but he is also not a very good writer.
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About 1/2 way through and starting to skip around a bit...it's a big book and I'm finding some of the sisters more interesting than others, but overall what a fascinating family.
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Since reading Mary Lovell’s book on the Mitford sisters, I have been intrigued by the family.
This book gave an in-depth exploration but was tediously detailed. I ended up reading other books around this as I found it a slog to get through. As I suggest, it is informative just not particularly engaging or entertaining.
This book gave an in-depth exploration but was tediously detailed. I ended up reading other books around this as I found it a slog to get through. As I suggest, it is informative just not particularly engaging or entertaining.
I was drawn to the Mitfords through reading Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford, and this book does give a lot of detail. It's just that it is rather difficult to read, a bit of a slog, and it isn't well organised.
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May try this one again...had to skip some sections and try to get to others, hoping it would get better as I went along. It didn't. Very cumbersome and makes an exciting family almost boring because of the deep dive into the most mundane details.
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Whitewashing the dark bits.
Interesting read.
Verging on panegyric with some unapologetically colonialist passages, I found this an incredibly uncomfortable read.
2nd time.
First read 2004
First read 2004
This book by Diana's son Jonathan is much less objective than Mary Lovell's The Sisters, The Saga of the Mitford Family that I read in the past. He obviously favors his mother. The other Mitford books I have are Wait For Me by Debo, the Duchess of Devonshire and The Letters of Nancy Mitford, this latter I abandoned after a few chapters. I am not quite sure how I got on this kick. I was probably wondering how these sisters could get so crazy over politics. Diana, the Fascist, Decca, the Communist
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As a shameless Mitford fan, naturally I enjoyed this book. Written by the son and granddaughter of Diana Mitford Mosely, it is naturally a defense of the House of Mitford, and for the most part comes across as a reasonable one. The portraits painted of the family are more intimate than those in other books. It gets beyond the caricatures and describes actual three-dimensional people, family dynamics and the historical context that explains much which might otherwise seem inexplicable I especiall
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Downton Abbey on Acid: Non-Fiction history of impoversihed British aritocratic family well known for being super wacky, eccentrics. This book follows their lineage to see how the family turned out so wack.
The most famous/infamous generation of the Mitford family is that of WWII era. Of the Mitford daughters 2 were buddies w/Hitler and hard-core Nazis, 1 a Communist, 1 a popular writer, 1 a sheep farmer and 1 a Duchess.
The most famous/infamous generation of the Mitford family is that of WWII era. Of the Mitford daughters 2 were buddies w/Hitler and hard-core Nazis, 1 a Communist, 1 a popular writer, 1 a sheep farmer and 1 a Duchess.
Written shortly after the death of Mosley, it is in part an exploration of (if not an apologia for) Diana's involvement in his movement, written very skilfully by her descendants. But it has many worthwhile aspects, including the information on the Mitford grandfathers, Bertie Redesdale and Tommy (or Tap) Bowles. I would love it if Sadie's unpublished manuscript, referred to in the book, were available for readers.
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The book successfully shows that despite all the family disagreements and bickering, underlying it all was strong family affection and unity. The book didn’t do much, however, to answer my initial questions about how an admittedly eccentric but not very political upbringing could produce such extremes of personalities and beliefs in a single generation.
See my complete review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/t... ...more
See my complete review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/t... ...more
The early parts of the book on the Various Mitford ancestors interested me most but I bogged down as we neared the twentieth century and just didn't get beyond Sydney and David's wedding.
May be I will come back to it, but there is so much on my 'want to read list' that I will turn my attention there rather than persist. ...more
May be I will come back to it, but there is so much on my 'want to read list' that I will turn my attention there rather than persist. ...more
Loved this book! It was a well-researched and thorough recounting of a most fascinating family. However, since Jonathan is Diana's son, I wish he 1) would have offered more personal insights and 2) wouldn't have referred to himself in the third person. These are minor complaints, though, and the book was well written and intriguing.
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I skimmed passages of this book which seems so outdated in light of other books I have read. The prose is unnecessarily thick and pedantic. Not a good casual read. I'm pulling out of this one and starting to read the Mitford Letters book.
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A must for anyone who is in love with the Mitford family. It provides a detailed history of the entire family and it serves as a great reference book in later years as you forget some of the details of the family.
This a good read, far more informative than Lovells, but that could be its down fall. It's very detailed and takes a while to get to the point. If you are a Mitford buff, it's definitely worth reading.
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really enjoyed this book about such a fascinating family
I struggled to finish this and only did so because the Mitford's are so interesting. The writing was laboured and sycophantic. I would have enjoyed it more if the writer had been less partisan
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Awfully boring book for such interesting subjects. Yawn.
More Mitfords. More details. More Madness.
Topbiografie
Interesting read but not overly exciting. Took awhile to read because of that.
Overall an interesting read about the family. You can tell that Jonathan favors his parents and spends more time than not defending Diana. But, overall, the book gives great insight to the family, especially to the grandfathers.
Diana Mosley was a Nazi. We're all very clear on that. Jonathan Guinness is her son. He tries to make it seem like her beliefs and actions are less dangerous than they were. She's a Nazi. There's no band aid to cover that big a flaw in a person. Too bad he tries to drag his more liberal aunts in an attempt to salvage his Nazi mom's Nazi legacy.
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