Life in a Cold Climate: Nancy Mitford; The Biography (Great Lives)

by Laura Thompson

0 ratings • 0 reviews • 0 shelved
Book cover for Life in a Cold Climate

Bookhype may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure.

Nancy Mitford was, in the words of her sister Lady Diana Mosley, “very complex.” Her highly autobiographical early work, the biographies and novels of her more mature French period, her journalism, and the vast body of letters to her family, to friends such as Evelyn Waugh, and to the great love of her life, Gaston Palewski, all tell an intriguing story.

Drawing from these, as well as conversations with Mitford’s two surviving sisters, acquaintances, and colleagues, prizewinning author Laura Thompson has fashioned a portrait of a contradictory and courageous woman. Approaching her subject with wit, perspicacity, and huge affection, Thompson makes her serious points lightly, eschewing clichés about the eccentricities of the Mitford clan. Life in a Cold Climate is full of the sound of Mitfordian laughter; but also tells the often paradoxical and complex story beneath the smiling and ever-elegant façade.

  • ISBN10 1643133039
  • ISBN13 9781643133034
  • Publish Date 4 February 2020 (first published 3 March 2003)
  • Publish Status Transferred
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Pegasus Books
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 444
  • Language English