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...

"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...

The love and marriage of a beautiful Englishwoman and a glamorous French marquis.

"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,...

Linda Radlett, daughter of Lord and Lady Alconleigh, follows her heart in and out of adventures, marriages, and dalliances, much to the dismay of her parents. Her dear friend Polly Hampton maintains a cooler head in her romantic entanglements. Seamlessly weaving together the two women's tangled love affairs.