Book description
Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love
is one of the funniest, sharpest novels about love and growing up
ever written.
'Obsessed with sex!' said Jassy, 'there's nobody so obsessed as
you, Linda. Why if I so much as look at a picture you say I'm a
pygmalionist.'
In the end we got more information out of a book called Ducks and
Duck Breeding.
'Ducks can only copulate,' said Linda, after studying this for a
while, 'in running water. Good luck to them.'
Oh, the tedium of waiting to grow up! Longing for love, obsessed
with weddings and sex, Linda and her sisters and cousin Fanny are on
the lookout for the perfect lover.
But finding Mr Right is much harder than any of the sisters had
thought. Linda must suffer marriage first to a stuffy Tory MP and then
to a handsome and humourless communist, before finding real love in
war-torn Paris. . .
'Utter, utter bliss' Daily Mail
Nancy Mitford was the eldest of the infamous Mitford sisters, known
for her membership in 'The Bright Young Things' clique of the 1920s
and an intimate of Evelyn Waugh; she produced witty, satirical novels
with a cast of characters taken directly from the aristocratic social
scene of which she was a part. Her novels, Wigs on the Green,
Love in a Cold Climate, The Blessing and Don't Tell
Alfred, are available in single paperback editions from Penguin or
as part of The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford which
also includes Highland Fling, Christmas Pudding and
Pigeon Pie. This edition of The Pursuit of Love is
introduced by novelist Zo Heller.
Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) was born in London, the eldest child of
the second Baron Redesdale. Her childhood in a large remote country
house with her five sisters and one brother is recounted in the early
chapters of The Pursuit of Love (1945), which according to the
author, is largely autobiographical. Apart from being taught to ride
and speak French, Nancy Mitford always claimed she never received a
proper education. She started writing before her marriage in 1932 in
order 'to relieve the boredom of the intervals between the recreations
established by the social conventions of her world' and had written
four novels, including Wigs on the Green (1935), before the
success of The Pursuit of Love in 1945. After the war she moved
to Paris where she lived for the rest of her life. She followed The
Pursuit of Love with Love in a Cold Climate (1949),
The Blessing (1951) and Don't Tell Alfred (1960). She
also wrote four works of biography: Madame de Pompadour, first
published to great acclaim in 1954, Voltaire in Love, The
Sun King and Frederick the Great. As well as being a
novelist and a biographer she also translated Madame de Lafayette's
classic novel, La Princesse de Cl ves, into English, and edited
Noblesse Oblige, a collection of essays concerned with the
behaviour of the English aristocracy and the idea of 'U' and 'non-U'.
Nancy Mitford was awarded the CBE in 1972.
Zo Heller is the author of three novels: Everything You
Know; Notes on a Scandal, which was shortlisted for the Man
Booker Prize in 2003; and The Believers.
