PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Take Six Girls

The Lives of the Mitford Sisters

Laura Thompson

$22.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

QTY:

English
Head of Zeus
05 October 2016
'Wonderfully readable... Emphasises their sheer extraordinariness and celebrates them' MAIL ON SUNDAY.

The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by John Betjeman; the third was a fascist who married Oswald Mosley; 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 country-house privilege, they became prominent as 'bright young things' in the high society of interwar London. Then, as the shadows crept over 1930s Europe, the stark – and very public – differences in their outlooks came to symbolise the political polarities of a dangerous decade.

The intertwined stories of their lives – recounted in masterly fashion by Laura Thompson – hold up a revelatory mirror to upper-class English life before and after World War II.

By:  
Imprint:   Head of Zeus
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 129mm, 
ISBN:   9781784970895
ISBN 10:   1784970891
Pages:   400
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Author Website:   http://www.wardmccandlish.co.uk/AuthorPhoto/HeadofZeus/Laura_Thompson.jpg

Laura Thompson is the award-winning author of Life in a Cold Climate: A Biography of Nancy Mitford; Agatha Christie: An English Mystery (2007) and A Different Class of Murder: the Story of Lord Lucan (2014).

Reviews for Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters

I was enthralled and charmed by this group biography of all six Mitford sisters, which tells the intertwined stories of their stylish scandalous lives in a fresh and admirably concise way - and with a striking contemporary sensibility too * Bookseller, Editors Choice * Engaging... Thompson's is an astute, highly readable and well assembled book, and she writes with particular intelligence about the sisters' self-mythologising and their ongoing hold on the public imagination' * The Observer * Thompson is marvellous at mapping and explicating the webs or skeins of sibling rivalry [in this] gripping and appalling family saga * The Times * The first book to consider the whole six-pack in the post-Mitford age. And what a remarkable story it is... Thompson retells the story with great style and illuminating detail' * The Independent * Thompson has written this book with generosity and delicacy. It is amusing, poignant and perceptive as a portrait of the sisters' long lives and changing times, and of their own apparent inability to change with them * Book Oxygen * A breezy vigorous argument for the sisters' powerful, unrepeatable significance... Thompson combines a subtle understanding of history with enjoyably crisp, tart insights: this is an excellent place either to begin with the Mitfords or proceed with them' * Mail on Sunday * I was captivated by this group biography, which tells the story of the Mitfords' sensational lives in a fresh and concise way * Sunday Express * A wonderful telling of an extraordinary family living in extraordinary times * Yorkshire Gazette & Herald * This is a careful, realistic assessment of their virtues, follies and charm * Daily Mail. * Not the first-ever book about the Mitford sisters - but it might well be the best of the lot' * Reader's Digest. * Thompson's wonderfully readable biography emphasises their sheer extraordinariness and celebrates them * The Mail on Sunday * This book builds rich individual portraits, especially of the unfathomable Diana * TLS * Gives a great insight into the relationship between the sisters as their lives unfold * Irish Independent * It's brilliant on the most fascinating and least explored sister, Diana... A wonderful book' * Mail on Sunday *


See Also