Publisher's Synopsis
"The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by British poet laureate John Betjeman; the third was a Fascist who married Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire. They were the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. Born into privilege, they were the "bright young things" of high society London in the '20s and '30s. Then, as the shadows crept over 1930s Europe, the stark--and very public--differences in their outlooks came to symbolize the political polarities of a dangerous decade. The intertwined stories of their stylish and scandalous lives--recounted in masterly fashion by Laura Thompson--hold up a revelatory mirror to upper-class English. life before and after Wor
