Other editions of book Hons and Rebels

Jessica Mitford, the great muckraking journalist, was part of a legendary English aristocratic family. Her sisters included Nancy, doyenne of the 1920s London smart set and a noted novelist and biographer; Diana, wife to the English fascist chief Sir Oswald Mosley; Unity, who fell head over in heels in love with Hitler; and Deborah, later the Duchess of Devonshire. Jessica swung left and moved to America, where she took part in the civil rights movement and wrote her classic exposé of the undertaking business, The American Way of Death.Hons and Rebels is the hugely entertaining tale of Mitford's upbringing, which was, as she dryly remarks, “not exactly conventional. . . Debo spent silent hours in the chicken house learning to do an exact imitation of the look of pained concentration that comes over a hen's face when it is laying an egg. . . . Unity and I made up a complete language called Boudledidge, unintelligible to any but ourselves, in which we translated various dirty songs (for safe singing in front of the grown-ups).” But Mitford found her family's world as smothering as it was singular and, determined to escape it, she eloped with Esmond Romilly, Churchill's nephew, to go fight in the Spanish Civil War. The ensuing scandal, in which a British destroyer was dispatched to recover the two truants, inspires some of Mitford's funniest, and most pointed, pages.A family portrait, a tale of youthful folly and high-spirited adventure, a study in social history, a love story, Hons and Rebels is a delightful contribution to the autobiographer's art.

'Whenever I read the words "Peer's Daughter" in a headline,' Lady Redesdale once sadly remarked, 'I know it's going to be something about one of you children.' The Mitford family is one of the century's most enigmatic, made notorious by Nancy's novels, Diana's marriage to Sir Oswald Mosley, Unity's infatuation with Hitler, Debo's marriage to a duke and Jessica's passionate commitment to communism. Hons and Rebels is an enchanting and deeply absorbing memoir of an isolated and eccentric upbringing which conceals beneath its witty, light-hearted surface much wisdom and depth of feeling.

We have met the explosive Lord Redesdale before- thinly disguised as General Murgatroyd and Uncle Matthew in the novels of Nancy Mitford. Now another of his daughters has told the whole story of a remarkable family. The Mitford children emerged from an insular, eccentric home into various equally harsh limelights. There was Nancy's success as a writer; the social fame of Tom and Diana (she married first Brian Guinness and later Sir Oswald Mosley); and the political notoriety of Unity, who was admitted to Hitler's circle and was sent back to England mysteriously wounded after the outbreak of war.

Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. Folio Society 2010. Thick Royal 8to. 267pp. Profuse illustrations from photgraphs. Volume appears unopened and unread, excellent clean tight sound square, no bookplate, inscriptions or marks of any kind. Excellent in bright gilt lettered dog-tooth patterened cloth, featuring coloured illustration of Mitford family to upper. Also excellent slipcase. Memoir of familial discord, between the communist author Jessica and her Nazi sypathiseing siblings Unity and Diana, friends of Moseley and HItler. Fascinating for reader and collector alike.

'Whenever I read the words "Peer's Daughter" in a headline,' Lady Redesdale once sadly remarked, 'I know it's going to be something about one of you children.' The Mitford family is one of the century's most enigmatic, made notorious by Nancy's novels, Diana's marriage to Sir Oswald Mosley, Unity's infatuation with Hitler, Debo's marriage to a duke and Jessica's passionate commitment to communism. Hons and Rebels is an enchanting and deeply absorbing memoir of an isolated and eccentric upbringing which conceals beneath its witty, light-hearted surface much wisdom and depth of feeling.