Cover image for The six : the lives of the Mitford sisters / Laura Thompson.
TITLE:
The six : the lives of the Mitford sisters / Laura Thompson.
Alternate Title:
Lives of the Mitford sisters
Former Title:
Take six girls.
Publication Date:
2015
Publication Information:
New York : St. Martin's Press,
Physical Description:
388 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., genealogical table.
Geographic Term:
Bibliography Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:
An enthralling biography of six glamorous daughters of the British aristocracy in the early twentieth century, whose lives take different directions, all rife with scandal, controversy, and tragedy. Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. Born into privilege, the Mitford sisters were the "bright young things" of high society London in the 1920s and 1930s. Born into country-house privilege in the early years of the 20th century, they became prominent as "bright young things" in the high society of interwar London. But as the shadow of Fascism crept over Europe, the stark, and very public, differences in their outlooks would reflect the political extremes of a dangerous era. The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by British poet laureate John Betjeman; the third was a Fascist who married Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire. The intertwined stories of their stylish and scandalous lives hold up a revelatory mirror to upper-class English life before and after World War II.
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781250099532
General Note:
Previously published: Take Six Girls.