Love in a Cold Climate

Zusatztext “Mitford’s art at its best is so fine! so beautifully shimmering with wit and gaiety that it creates a standard of its own.” — The New Republic “Entirely original! inimitable! and irresistible.” — Spectator Informationen zum Autor Nancy Mitford, daughter of Lord and Lady Redesdale and the eldest of the six legendary Mitford sisters, was born in 1904 and educated at home on the family estate in Oxfordshire. She made her debut in London and soon became one of the bright young things of the 1920s, a close friend of Henry Green, Evelyn Waugh, John Betjeman, and their circle. A beauty and a wit, she began writing for magazines and writing novels while she was still in her twenties. In all, she wrote eight novels as well as biographies of Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, Louis XIV, and Frederick the Great. She died in 1973. More information can be found at www.nancymitford.com. Klappentext A sparkling romantic comedy that vividly evokes the lost glamour of aristocratic life in England between the wars. Polly Hampton has long been groomed for the perfect marriage by her mother, the fearsome and ambitious Lady Montdore. But Polly, with her stunning good looks and impeccable connections, is bored by the monotony of her glittering debut season in London. Having just come from India, where her father served as Viceroy, she claims to have hoped that society in a colder climate would be less obsessed with love affairs. The apparently aloof and indifferent Polly has a long-held secret, however, one that leads to the shattering of her mother's dreams and her own disinheritance. When an elderly duke begins pursuing the disgraced Polly and a callow potential heir curries favor with her parents, nothing goes as expected, but in the end all find happiness in their own unconventional ways. Featuring an introduction by Flora Fraser. Chapter 1 I am obliged to begin this story with a brief account of the Hampton family, because it is necessary to emphasise the fact once and for all that the Hamptons were very grand as well as very rich. A short session with Burke or with Debrett would be quite enough to make this clear, but these large volumes are not always available, while the books on the subject by Lord Montdore’s brother-in-law, Boy Dougdale, are all out of print. His great talent for snobbishness and small talent for literature have produced three detailed studies of his wife’s forebears, but they can only be read now by asking a bookseller to get them at second hand. (The bookseller will put an advertisement in his trade paper, The Clique : “H. Dougdale, any by.” He will be snowed under with copies at about a shilling each and will then proudly inform his customer that he has “managed to find what you want,” implying hours of careful search on barrows, dirt cheap, at 30/- the three.) Georgiana Lady Montdore and Her Circle , The Magnificent Montdores and Old Chronicles of Hampton , I have them beside me as I write, and see that the opening paragraph of the first is:   “Two ladies, one dark, one fair, both young and lovely, were driving briskly towards the little village of Kensington on a fine May morning. They were Georgiana, Countess of Montdore and her great friend Walburga, Duchess of Paddington, and they made a delightfully animated picture as they discussed the burning question of the hour—should one or should one not subscribe to a parting present for poor dear Princess Lieven?”   This book is dedicated, by gracious permission, to Her Royal Highness, the Grand Duchess Peter of Russia, and has eight full-page illustrations.     It must be said that when this trilogy first came out it had quite a vogue with the lending-library public.   “The family of Hampton is ancient in the West of England, indeed Fuller, in his Worthies mentions it as being of stupendous antiqu...

Product details

• Authors: Nancy Mitford
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 10.08.2010
• EAN: 9780307740823
• ISBN: 978-0-307-74082-3
• No. of pages: 256
• Dimensions: 135 mm x 205 mm x 20 mm
• Series: Radlett and Montdore; Radlett and Montdore
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature