“My dear Lady Kroesig, I have only read one book in my life, and that is ‘White Fang.’ It’s so frightfully good I’ve never bothered to read another.”
I’ve read several books about the Mitfords, but to my shame had never read anything by any of them, so back at the start of the year when a friend pointed out a good deal on Nancy Mitford’s collected works I snapped them up and have been immersed in them ever since, having so far finished the first (Highland Fling) and the best known (The Pursuit of Love).
I think what I loved most about this book the way the narrator, Fanny, describes the characters around her with such dry wit but also with detachment. A friend of mine once described Nancy Mitford as “posh and prototype chick-lit” but she’s just too sharp to be dismissed in that way, almost all of her words reaching their intended targets. Next: Jessica Mitford, I think…
One x Four 