The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family
Read The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family Online
Authors: Mary S. Lovell
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Women
Further Praise for
The Sisters
“The Mitfords’ stories have been told over and over again, but . . . Lovell, utilizing previously unseen documents, explores the relationships between the sisters . . . and presents the utter ‘fun’ of this privileged but madcap family.”
—Allen Weakland, Booklist
“A captivating read.”
—Amy Strong, Library Journal
“Lovell deftly weaves together the various strands of her subjects’ lives, making great use of letters, interviews and unpublished correspondence, as well as interviews with the two surviving Mitford sisters, Diana and Deborah.”
—Matthew Price, Newsday
“[An] absorbing and delightful biography of the Mitford family.”
—Ann Hellmuth, Chicago Tribune
“Lovell rises with aplomb to the challenges of a group biography, deftly weaving together the narrative threads of six at times radically disparate lives to create a fascinating account of a fascinating family.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This biography presents a fascinating family to a new generation of readers.”
—Lisa Levy, Entertainment Weekly
Biographies by Mary S. Lovell
Straight on till Morning
: The Biography of Beryl Markham
The Sound of Wings
: The Biography of Amelia Earhart
Cast No Shadow
:
The Spy Who Changed the Course of World War II
A Scandalous Life
: The Biography of Jane Digby
The Splendid Outcast
: The African Short Stories of Beryl Markham
A Rage to Live
: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton
THE
SISTERS
The Saga of the
Mitford Family
Mary S. Lovell
W. W. Norton & Company
New York—London
Copyright © 2001 by Mary S. Lovell
First published as a Norton paperback 2003
Originally published in England under the title
The Mitford Girls: The Biography of an Extraordinary Family
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
For information about permission to reproduce selections from
this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
Manufacturing by Quebecor Fairfield
Ebook conversion by Erin Campbell, TIPS Technical Publishing, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lovell, Mary S.
[Mitford girls]
The sisters: the saga of the Mitford family / Mary S. Lovell.—1st
American ed.
p. cm.
Originally published: The Mitford girls. London : Little, Brown, 2001.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-393-01043-0
1. Mitford family. 2. Mitford, Nancy, 1904–1973. 3. Mitford, Jessica,
1917– 4. Mitford, Unity, 1914–1948. 5. Great Britain—Biography.
I. Title.
CT787.M57 L68 2002
920.72’0941—dc21 2001044942
ISBN 0-393-32414-1 pbk.
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT
234567890
This book is for
Graeme, Shari, Robyn and Imogen
With all the love in the world
Contents
1. Sydney and Dorothy (‘Weenie’) Bowles in their ubiquitous sailorsuits, c. 1892.
2. Sydney the newlywed, Cowes, Isle of Wight, 1904.
3. David and Sydney with three-year-old Nancy, c. 1907. (Nancy used this image on the cover of her book
The Water Beetle
.)
4. David Mitford worked his mine in Swastika, Canada, for years but never struck gold. September 1913.
5. The Mitford family in 1912: Nancy, David, Tom, Diana, Sydney and Pam. Note the bloodhound with which David ‘hunted’ the children.
6. Batsford House, which David inherited in 1916.
7. The library at Batsford. A grand house but the Redesdales could not afford to keep it.
8. Seaside holidays at Hastings. Left to right: Diana, Tom and Pam.
9. Diana, Nancy, Pam and Tom with the chickens whose eggs paid for the governess.
10. Nancy aged nine.
