Nancy Mitford

The snobbery and false values of the English country nobility are satirized in these two love stories involving the well-established Radlett and Hampton families.

"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...

In this delightful comedy, Fanny-the quietly observant narrator of Nancy Mitford's two most famous novels-finally takes center stage. Fanny Wincham-last seen as a young woman in The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate-has lived contentedly for years as housewife to an absent-minded Oxford don, Alfred. But her life changes overnight when her beloved Alfred is appointed English Ambassador to Paris. Soon she finds herself mixing with royalty...

"Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie are two sparkling comedies from early in the career of Nancy Mitford, beloved author of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, here published in one volume with a new introduction by Jane Smiley. In Christmas Pudding, an array of colorful characters converge on the hunt-obsessed Lady Bobbin's country house, including her rebellious daughter Philadelphia, the girl's pompous suitor, a couple of children obsessed...

"Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, also known as Madame de Pompadour (29 December 1721 ? 15 April 1764, French pronunciation: {7f200b}[p̃.pa.du?]) was a member of the French court and was the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to her death."--Wikipedia.

"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,...