Mitford Sisters

A biography of the six Mitford sisters — Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah — born into English country-house privilege in the early twentieth century and prominent as "bright young things" in interwar London society. As fascism and communism divided Europe in the 1930s, the sisters' public lives came to embody the era's political extremes: Diana married the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, Unity became an admirer of Adolf Hitler, Jessica joined the Communist cause, Nancy built a career as a novelist of upper-class manners, Pamela kept to country life, and Deborah became Duchess of Devonshire. Drawing on the sisters' own letters and writings, Laura Thompson traces their entangled, often adversarial relationships against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world, from the interwar years through the Second World War and beyond.