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5+ oeuvres 1,613 utilisateurs 36 critiques

A propos de l'auteur

Œuvres de Charlotte Mosley

The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters (2007) — Directeur de publication — 817 exemplaires
In Tearing Haste: Letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor (2008) — Directeur de publication — 335 exemplaires
The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh (1996) — Directeur de publication — 275 exemplaires
Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford (1993) — Directeur de publication — 185 exemplaires
The Mitfords 1 exemplaire

Oeuvres associées

Charivari (1935) — Avant-propos, quelques éditions344 exemplaires

Étiqueté

Partage des connaissances

Date de naissance
1952
Sexe
female
Nationalité
England
UK
Lieux de résidence
Paris, France
Professions
publisher
journalist
editor
Relations
Mosley, Diana (mother-in-law)
Mitford, Nancy (aunt-in-law)
Courte biographie
Charlotte Mosley, who married Max Mosley, a son of author Diana (Mitford) Mosley, has written about the six Mitford sisters and edited some of their correspondence. She has worked as a publisher and journalist and lives in Paris.

Membres

Discussions

labwriter's Mitford Sisters thread, #1 à 75 Books Challenge for 2011 (Avril 2011)

Critiques

This collection of letters has converted me to reading books of letters, especially if the writers are as witty and talented as Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh. A brief appendix describing people most often referred to in the correspondence helps keep the names and nicknames in mind. The biographical information on Mitford and Waugh is also helpful. I read a few letters at a time before bed each night and enjoyed them tremendously, even though Waugh was something of a sourpuss.
 
Signalé
nmele | 4 autres critiques | Oct 9, 2023 |
This is an entertaining exchange of correspondence, in many ways, because Paddy Leigh Fermor loved books but obviously hated sitting down to write them, whilst Deborah, youngest Mitford sister and Duchess of Devonshire in her day job, always professed to loath books(*) but rather enjoyed writing them. He knew as little about death-watch beetles, the National Trust and diseases of sheep as she did about literature and Byzantine art, so their letters, which span five decades, never get bogged down in professional gossip, but range freely over the oddness of the world, the strange ways their respective lives have panned out, and the many interesting people they both know.

Being who they were, between the two of them they mixed with just about everybody who was anybody in the mid-20th century (not just in England and Greece, either: Deborah was sister-in-law to the Kennedys, and Paddy knew most of the ex-aristocrats of Central and Eastern Europe). Royalty, landowners, politicians, spies, travel writers and SOE types, artists and sculptors, Hollywood, the queerocracy, the Bloomsburies, and all the rest. So the names do tend to drop thick and fast, but of course they aren't trying to impress each other, it's more like an amused fascination with the way all these connections drop into place.

Often, too, they seem to use their letters as a safe space to try out material for articles or speeches they are working on: it's quite odd sometimes to read Paddy's long and detailed accounts to Deborah of trips to remote places he's been on with her husband.

Charlotte Mosley (daughter-in-law of Deborah's sister Diana) had the great advantage when she was editing this book that both participants were still around to answer questions, and she has included their comments in the footnotes where something is obscure from the letters. Other than that, her own notes are brief, unintrusive and usually enough to help you to keep up with all the idiosyncratic nicknames.

As with almost all letter collections, the main drawback is that the last part of the book leaves you on a depressing note of old age, illness, and a steady stream of funerals. Maybe the trick would be to start at the end and work backwards in time?

---
(*) This was so notorious that when Evelyn Waugh sent her a presentation copy of his latest book in 1959, he arranged for it to be bound with all the pages blank to see if she would notice.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
thorold | 7 autres critiques | Jul 25, 2021 |
A really good correspondence between two writers...every one interesting.
 
Signalé
Karen74Leigh | 4 autres critiques | Sep 4, 2019 |

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Auteurs associés

Nancy Mitford Contributor
Jessica Mitford Contributor
Diana Mitford Contributor
Deborah Mitford Contributor
Pamela Mitford Contributor
Unity Mitford Contributor
Evelyn Waugh Contributor

Statistiques

Œuvres
5
Aussi par
1
Membres
1,613
Popularité
#15,973
Évaluation
3.9
Critiques
36
ISBN
20
Langues
1

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