Books: Mad About The Mitfords

A delightful biography of the eccentric British sisters

From the 1940s to the 1980s, the Mitford Industry (as the Mitfords themselves jokingly called it) produced several best-selling books, films, a television documentary and even a musical by and about that lively clan. At the center of it all were six beautiful, witty and controversial British sisters whose friendships ranged from the likes of Lytton Strachey to Maya Angelou, Joseph Goebbels to John Kennedy. They had, in the words of their most recent biographer, Mary S. Lovell, a "remarkable energy, joie de vivre and self-confidence" that made them seem almost like mythological creatures. Yet as Lovell notes in her introduction...

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