A disastrous love life did not impinge on Mitford's love of life a formidable character, she drew an intimate coterie around her and retained a clannish loyalty to her many sisters. Drawing on Mitford's abundant correspondence - filled with enough devastating one-liners to rival her contemporary Evelyn Waugh - Acton effortlessly captures her idiom, from the breathless teenager let loose in Europe to the woman with the elegance of a Chanel drawing who settled permanently in Paris after the second world war. It was left to her great friend and fellow Bright Young Thing, Harold Acton, to produce this delicious portrait. Nancy Mitford planned to write her memoirs, but failing health meant that the project was never undertaken. Nancy Mitford, by Harold Acton (Gibson Square, £7.99)
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