Download or read book The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford written by Nancy Mitford and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-11-03 with total page 1670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DISCOVER ALL EIGHT OF NANCY MITFORD'S SPARKLINGLY ASTUTE, HILARIOUS AND COMPLETELY UNPUTDOWNABLE NOVELS IN ONE COLLECTION - WITH AN INTRODUCTION FROM INDIA KNIGHT Published over a period of 30 years, they provide a wonderful glimpse of the bright young things of the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties in the city and in the shires; firmly ensconced at home or making a go of it abroad; and what the upper classes really got up to in peace and in war. The collection includes: - The Pursuit of Love - Love in a Cold Climate - Don't Tell Alfred - The Blessing - Pidgeon Pie - Wigs on the Green - Christmas Pudding - Highland Fling 'Entirely original, inimitable and irresistible' Spectator 'Deliciously funny' Evelyn Waugh 'Utter, utter bliss' Daily Mail

Download or read book The Complete Novels written by Nancy Mitford and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 992 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford. Here in one volume are all eight of Nancy Mitford's sparklingly astute, hilarious and completely unputdownable novels: Highland Fling, Christmas Pudding, Wigs on the Green, Pigeon Pie, The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate, The Blessing and Don't Tell Alfred. Published over a period of 30 years, they provide a wonderful glimpse of the bright young things of the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties in the city and in the shires; firmly ensconced at home or making a go of it abroad; and what the upper classes really got up to in peace and in war. 'Entirely original, inimitable and irresistible' Spectator 'Deliciously funny' Evelyn Waugh 'Utter, utter bliss' Daily Mail

Download or read book Highland Fling written by Nancy Mitford and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Highland Fling—Nancy Mitford’s first novel, published in 1931—a set of completely incompatible and hilariously eccentric characters collide in a Scottish castle, where bright young things play pranks on their stodgy elders until the frothy plot climaxes in ghost sightings and a dramatic fire. Inspired in part by Mitford’s youthful infatuation with a Scottish aristocrat, her story follows young Jane Dacre to a shooting party at Dulloch Castle, where she tramps around a damp and chilly moor on a hunting expedition with formidable Lady Prague, xenophobic General Murgatroyd, one-eyed Admiral Wenceslaus, and an assortment of other ancient and gouty peers of the realm, while falling in love with Albert, a surrealist painter with a mischievous sense of humor. Lighthearted and sparkling with witty banter, Highland Fling was Mitford’s first foray into the delightful fictional world for which the author of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate later became so celebrated. With an Introduction by Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey.

Download or read book Voltaire in Love written by Nancy Mitford and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inimitable Nancy Mitford’s account of Voltaire’s fifteen-year relationship with the Marquise du Châtelet—the renowned mathematician who introduced Isaac Newton’s revolutionary new physics to France—is a spirited romp in the company of two extraordinary individuals as well as an erudite and gossipy guide to French high society during the Enlightenment. Mitford’s story is as delicious as it is complicated. The marquise was in love with another mathematician, Maupertuis, while she had an unexpected rival for Voltaire’s affections in the future Frederick the Great of Prussia (and later in the philosophe’s own niece). There was, at least, no jealous husband to contend with: the Marquis du Châtelet, Mitford assures us, behaved perfectly. The beau monde of Paris was, however, distraught at the idea of the lovers’ brilliant conversation going to waste on the windswept hills of Champagne, site of the Château de Cirey, where experimental laboratories, a darkroom, and a library of more than twenty-one thousand volumes enabled them to pursue their amours philosophiques. From time to time the threat of impending arrest would send Voltaire scurrying across the border into Holland, but his irrepressible charm—and the interventions of powerful friends—always made it possible for him resume his studies with the cherished marquise.

Download or read book Wigs on the Green written by Nancy Mitford and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-08-10 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nancy Mitford’s most controversial novel, unavailable for decades, is a hilarious satirical send-up of the fascist political enthusiasms of her sisters Unity and Diana, and of her notorious brother-in-law, Sir Oswald Mosley. Written in 1934, early in Hitler’s rise, Wigs on the Green lightheartedly skewers the devoted followers of British fascism. The sheltered and unworldy Eugenia Malmain is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of General Jack and his Union Jackshirts. World-weary Noel Foster and his scheming friend Jasper Aspect are in search of wealthy heiresses to marry; Lady Marjorie, disguised as a commoner, is on the run from the Duke she has just jilted at the altar; and her friend Poppy is considering whether to divorce her rich husband. When these characters converge with the colorful locals at a grandly misconceived costume pageant that turns into a brawl between Pacifists and Jackshirts, madcap farce ensues. Long suppressed by the author out of sensitivity to family feelings, Wigs on the Green can now be enjoyed by fans of Mitford’s superbly comic novels.

Download or read book Christmas Pudding written by Nancy Mitford and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2018-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The formidable fox-hunting obsessed Lady Bobbin has put together a Christmas house party at Compton Bobbin, including her rebellious daughter Philadelphia, the girl's pompous suitor, a couple of children obsessed with newspaper death notices, and an aspiring writer whose deadly (in more ways than one) serious first novel has been acclaimed as the funniest book of the year, to his utter dismay. And then there is beautiful ex courtesan Amabelle Fortescue and her group of guests staying in a nearby cottage ... As the house parties starts to unravel, so the jokes increase- this is Nancy Mitford's second novel and one of her earliest forays into the world of the Bright Young Things.

Download or read book Pigeon Pie written by Nancy Mitford and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set at the outbreak of World War II, Lady Sophia Garfield dreams of becoming a beautiful spy but manages not to notice a nest of German agents right under her nose. Until the murder of her maid and the kidnapping of her beloved bulldog force them on her attention, with heroic and absurd results. One of Mitford's earliest novels and written before Christmas 1939, Pigeon Pie is delivered with a touch lighter than that of her later masterpieces but no less entertaining. This comedy combines glamour, wit, and a fiendishly absurd plot into an irresistible literary confection. 'This sparking and deliciously acid commentary of the social world.' - The Scotsman

Download or read book The Pursuit of Love written by Nancy Mitford and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love is one of the funniest, sharpest novels about love and growing up ever written. 'Obsessed with sex!' said Jassy, 'there's nobody so obsessed as you, Linda. Why if I so much as look at a picture you say I'm a pygmalionist.' In the end we got more information out of a book called Ducks and Duck Breeding. 'Ducks can only copulate,' said Linda, after studying this for a while, 'in running water. Good luck to them.' Oh, the tedium of waiting to grow up! Longing for love, obsessed with weddings and sex, Linda and her sisters and cousin Fanny are on the lookout for the perfect lover. But finding Mr Right is much harder than any of the sisters had thought. Linda must suffer marriage first to a stuffy Tory MP and then to a handsome and humourless communist, before finding real love in war-torn Paris. . . 'Utter, utter bliss' Daily Mail Nancy Mitford was the eldest of the infamous Mitford sisters, known for her membership in 'The Bright Young Things' clique of the 1920s and an intimate of Evelyn Waugh; she produced witty, satirical novels with a cast of characters taken directly from the aristocratic social scene of which she was a part. Her novels, Wigs on the Green, Love in a Cold Climate, The Blessing and Don't Tell Alfred, are available in single paperback editions from Penguin or as part of The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford which also includes Highland Fling, Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie. This edition of The Pursuit of Love is introduced by novelist Zoë Heller.

Download or read book Happily Ever After written by Niamh Baker and published by Springer. This book was released on 1989-10-20 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work looks at the body of women's fiction written in postwar Britain, up to 1960. It examines the myth of the fairy tale ending and what changes the postwar period has wrought in subverting stereotypes.

Download or read book The Penguin Modern Classics Book written by Henry Eliot and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-11-18 with total page 2282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essential guide to twentieth-century literature around the world For six decades the Penguin Modern Classics series has been an era-defining, ever-evolving series of books, encompassing works by modernist pioneers, avant-garde iconoclasts, radical visionaries and timeless storytellers. This reader's companion showcases every title published in the series so far, with more than 1,800 books and 600 authors, from Achebe and Adonis to Zamyatin and Zweig. It is the essential guide to twentieth-century literature around the world, and the companion volume to The Penguin Classics Book. Bursting with lively descriptions, surprising reading lists, key literary movements and over two thousand cover images, The Penguin Modern Classics Book is an invitation to dive in and explore the greatest literature of the last hundred years.

Download or read book The Life and World of Francis Rodd Lord Rennell 1895 1978 written by Philip Boobbyer and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2021-01-20 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a biographical study of the geographer/explorer and banker Francis Rodd, the second Lord Rennell of Rodd (1895-1978). Rodd’s life is interesting for the way it connected the worlds of geography, international finance, politics, espionage, and wartime military administration. He was famous in the 1920s for his journeys to the Sahara and his study of the Tuareg, People of the Veil (1926). A career in banking included a stint at the Bank of England, before he became a Partner in the merchant bank Morgan Grenfell—where remained for most of his working life (1933-1961). During the war he worked for the Ministry of Economic Warfare (1939=40), before getting closely involved in the sphere of military government (civil affairs). In 1942, he was War Office’s Chief Political Officer in East Africa. He was then appointed head of the first Allied Military Government in occupied Europe (Chief Civil Affairs Officer of AMGOT). In civil affairs, he was drawn to the principles of indirect rule. A generalist in an age of growing specialisation, he was also a mixture of traditionalist and moderniser. A product of Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, and elevated to the peerage in 1941, he was well-connected socially, and his life is a window onto British society at a time of great change.

Download or read book British Literature in Transition 1940 1960 Postwar written by Gill Plain and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines debates central to postwar British culture, showing the pressures of reconstruction and the mutual implication of war and peace.

Download or read book The Best Novels of the Nineties written by Linda Parent Lesher and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This reader’s guide provides uniquely organized and up-to-date information on the most important and enjoyable contemporary English-language novels. Offering critically substantiated reading recommendations, careful cross-referencing, and extensive indexing, this book is appropriate for both the weekend reader looking for the best new mystery and the full-time graduate student hoping to survey the latest in magical realism. More than 1,000 titles are included, each entry citing major reviews and giving a brief description for each book.

Download or read book British Fiction and the Cold War written by A. Hammond and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-09-19 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a unique analysis of the wide-ranging responses of British novelists to the East-West conflict. Hammond analyses the treatment of such geopolitical currents as communism, nuclearism, clandestinity, decolonisation and US superpowerdom, and explores the literary forms which writers developed to capture the complexities of the age.

Download or read book Eccentric Britain written by Benedict Le Vay and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2005 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A delightful romp around the British Isles searching out the mad marquess, the eccentric earl, the barmy baron, and the daft duke and gathering a fair collection of crackpot inventors, weird adventurers and fascinatingly and not to mention insanely curious customs along the way. All of which make this rainy little island home to that remarkable breed of individual - the British eccentric.This expanded book still doesn't tell you where Stonehenge is, but it does tell you where ten spookier stone circles are where there will be no crowds, no admission charges and no parking problems... This is a book for the intelligent, humorous, curious tourist who doesn't go with the crowd. It is also a great armchair read that has been known to have readers weeping with mirth at the weird ways of the British.

Download or read book The Unbearable Saki written by Sandie Byrne and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2007-11-15 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revaluation of the work of the popular Edwardian short story writer, novelist, journalist, blackest of black humorists, and master of the sting in the tale, Saki (H.H. Munro).

Download or read book 1956 written by Francis Beckett and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1956: a defining year that heralded the modern era.Britain and France occupied Suez, and the Soviet Union tanks rolled into Hungary. Nikita Khrushchev's 'secret speech' exposed the crimes of Stalin, and the Royal Court Theatre unveiled John Osborne's Look Back in Anger. Rock 'n' roll music was replacing the gentle pop songs of Mum and Dad's generation, and it was the first full year of independent television.As post-war assumptions were shattered, the upper middle class was shaken and the communist left was shocked, radical new ideas about sex, skiffle and socialism emerged, and attitudes shifted on an unprecedented scale - precipitated by the decline of Attlee's Britain and the first intimations of Thatcher's.From politics and conflict to sport and entertainment, this extraordinary book transports us back in time on a whirlwind journey through the history, headlines and happenings of this most momentous of years, vividly capturing the revolutionary spirit of 1956 - the year that changed Britain.