MITFORD, Nancy Love in a Cold Climate. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1949.
8vo., red cloth, lettering in gilt to spine; original unclipped pictorial dust wrapper (8s. 6d. net); pp. [viii], 9-284; book with slight shelf-lean, minor spotting to the upper edge; and compression to spine tips; the totally unrestored jacket marginally shelf-worn to lower panel, and just touched by sun to the spine; some nicking and chipping to the extremities, particularly head and foot of spine, with one small chip to upper edge of lower panel (no more than 1cm in length). One of the nicer copies we have seen in recent years, the jacket remainig rather vibrant.
First edition, in association with The Book Society.
The companion volume to Mitford's successful novel "The Pursuit of Love" (although the later sequel, Don't Tell Alfred, eventually made it a trilogy). Generally considered to be Mitford's best and funniest work, the title is a direct quotation from George Orwell's novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936).
The romantic comedy gives an insight into aristocratic life in England between the two World Wars, with Polly, one of Mitford's heroines, dealing with eccentric relatives, the excitement of love and passion, and the thrills of the social season. Nancy's sister Jessica Mitford writes in a later introduction that the plot is very much an autobiographical fictional piece, with Uncle Matthew retaining the same characteristics as Nancy’s father, and the children seeming to have all the traits of her sisters even down to the gang they called ‘The Hons’.
The book is dedicated to Lord Berners, a composer, novelist and painter who was a close friend of the Mitford family.
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