Rating: 
Summary: Can't beat the Mitfords
Review: Decca's account of her eccentric family is every bit as moving and funny as I had hoped. You can't beat the Mitfords in the "fact-is-stranger-than-fiction" category. Decca proves a formidable storyteller and great wit!
Rating:
Summary: Can't beat the Mitfords
Review: Decca's account of her eccentric family is every bit as moving and funny as I had hoped. You can't beat the Mitfords in the "fact-is-stranger-than-fiction" category. Decca proves a formidable storyteller and great wit!
Rating:
Summary: Decca's Story, Part 1
Review: Hons and Rebels (original American title Daughters and Rebels) was originally published in the 1950s. It is the autobiography of Jessica Mitford Treuhaft from her birth in 1917 up to the death of her first husband in 1941. Jessica Mitford was the next to youngest of the fabulous Mitford sisters, daughters of Lord and Lady Redesdale and surely among the most original scions of nobility to ever grace the pages of Burke's Peerage. Jessica is hilarious as she describes her eccentric childhood with Farve and Muv and her siblings Nancy, Diana, Tom, Pam, Unity and Deborah. The tone becomes somewhat (but only somewhat) more serious as she gets into the 1930s, when her sisters Diana and Unity became entranced with Hitler and Fascism and she herself became a committed Communist. Despising the world of the debutantes her parents expected her to enter, Jessica ran away from home to join her cousin and future husband Esmond Romilly in the Spanish Civil War. After their sensational elopement and marriage Jessica and Esmond lived for a time in the East End of London, then traveled to the US as World War II was about to break out. There Esmond joined the Canadian Air Force and was lost in the North Sea in December, 1941. Jessica Mitford had a marvelously witty pen, and there's at least one snicker on every page of Hons and Rebels. She was not above embroidering the truth to make the story better, so if you want to get the whole story you will want to check other Mitford histories like Mary Lovell's recent family biography, The Sisters. About twenty years after publishing Hons and Rebels Jessica published a second volume of her autobiography: A Fine Old Conflict, which describes her and second husband's troubles during the McCarthy era in the US. I hope that it will also be republished as it is just as entertaining as Hons and Rebels.
Rating:
Summary: My Mitford summer
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I wish I'd read it sooner. Jessica fills in the details of her story, which has been told in other books, but this in her own words. She wrote with wit and humor. It was fun to read about her plotting to run away from home. She was the bravest of the bunch I think. The travels in America are interesting to read. Her observations of Americans are on the mark. I was tickled to read how she enjoyed central heating in country houses here considering the cold houses the Mitfords lived in. In the last chapter she tells of her love for her husband which is very touching.
Rating:
Summary: My Mitford summer
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I wish I'd read it sooner. Jessica fills in the details of her story, which has been told in other books, but this in her own words. She wrote with wit and humor. It was fun to read about her plotting to run away from home. She was the bravest of the bunch I think. The travels in America are interesting to read. Her observations of Americans are on the mark. I was tickled to read how she enjoyed central heating in country houses here considering the cold houses the Mitfords lived in. In the last chapter she tells of her love for her husband which is very touching.
Rating: 
Summary: Furthest and Leftist
Review: Jessica was in many respects the only Mitford to escape. She did it early and with certainty, drama and flair. The leftist in a confused family of largely fascist and certainly later conservative leanings; Jessica was a 'Bolshie' as Nancy would say. The great pain in her life, that had once been a child's game, was that her favorite sister, Unity, was a Nazi sympathizer and onetime friend of Hitler's. As children, these two would draw the hammer and sickle and schwastikas in competitions each against the other, that ultimately took on more serious proportions. Jessica remained a rebel well into old age. This book is a love story and a story of breaking free, suffering and surviving. It is also slightly imitative of the works of her older sister, Nancy Mitford, who gained much more celebrity in writing about her upperclass "Hon" sisters and eccentric parents. Interestingly, Nancy found the book to be mean-spirited and somewhat dishonest. I read her thoughts recently in a book of her letters. She did not tell 'Decca' this, but said it openly to many members of her family. Nancy never really opposed the forces and characters in her family- she perhaps improved them in her writing. Her sister was not alligned in that manner- and often felt contempt.
That these girls were brilliant, there is no doubt. The book tells of their made up language, their constant games and spirit that was allowed to flourish, despite the bellowing and controlling father who, in hindsight was pre-occupied with his own fantasies and illusions so that his controls were not as complete as he may have imagined. Also, as with all families,
Farve mellowed by the time the younger children came around.
Jessica fell in love before she actually met her second cousin Esmond Romilly, relative of Churchill and a youthful, avowed Communist. Their story extends to the Spanish Civil War, to the British Embassy in Washington D.C. and ultimately to tragedy and Jessica's rebirth to purely American agenda's, not the least of which was the McCarthy era. The book is less funny than Nancy's but is very worth the read and has its own share of humor. When reading Nancy's letters, I was struck with how deeply she lived within her family throughout her life, despite her French residency. Jessica, seemed less entombed in the Lord Redesdale family, although certainly unforgettably a Mitford, she took the greatest risks, and the most sensational, and committed the gravest offense, that being, emigration to America. I recommend this to anyone intrigued, as I am, by this marvellous family. Jessica was certainly the boldest of the girls.
Rating:
Summary: The wonderful Mitfords writ large
Review: Proving that the ability to write humorously was not just limited to the more famous Mitford sister, Nancy, Jessica (or Decca as she was known by the family, writes an intentionally hilarious account of the first 20 or so years of her life. As I am going through a Mitford phase at the moment I thought I would start following up the various biographies and memoirs of the sisters and their children. There were six sisters in this family of eccentric, talented and individual children and one brother who unfortunately was killed in WWII. Jessica, the second youngest of the family was born in 1917 and was in the second half of the family - Nancy, the eldest was born in 1904, so they were never really contemporaries. Jessica's book Hon's and Rebels describes her memories of her home life and early marriage years until just before the death of her first husband in WWII. Its a marvellous read, and while other Mitford sisters have said that there are parts of this that are untrue, (memories are not necessarily that reliable) it is an easy, witty and fun read and enough reliability in it to not deceive. I would recommend reading this in conjunction with some of the other broader works of Mitford biographies, I read it with Mary Lovell's recent biography which was helpful = and definitely read Nancy Mitford's first two novels of her series (The pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate) before delving into any Mitford biographies. They are wonderful and draw from her life. Jessica's Memoirs are icing on a wonderful cake. (so to speak) A great, easy read.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and funny
Review: The fascist, the writer, the country girl, the Nazi, the communist, and the Duchess... the six Mitford sisters are truly one of the most fascinating group of people of the 20th century. This is Jessica "Decca" Mitford's story: she's the communist. A cousin of Winston Churchill, she rebelled early against her eccentic high-society family and eloped with her cousin (not Winston, obviously: a different cousin, who had been kicked out of several prestigious schools for his political beliefs). She witnessed the Spanish Civil War, lunched with Katharine Graham, lost her first husband in WWII, fled the country just in the nick of time to avoid her very own McCarthy hearing, and dedicated her life to uncovering institutional corruption and scamming of the the American public. Through it all, she retained her excellent sense of humor, her undeniable charm, and an unmistakable grace. It is a little disapointing that this book ends when it does, as Decca certainly continued to lead a fascinating life. However, it is always a priveledge to see inside the Mitford family, especially from the point of view of someone who felt that she was an outsider in the family (whether that was actually true or not is up for discussion).
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and funny
Review: The fascist, the writer, the country girl, the Nazi, the communist, and the Duchess... the six Mitford sisters are truly one of the most fascinating group of people of the 20th century. This is Jessica "Decca" Mitford's story: she's the communist. A cousin of Winston Churchill, she rebelled early against her eccentic high-society family and eloped with her cousin (not Winston, obviously: a different cousin, who had been kicked out of several prestigious schools for his political beliefs). She witnessed the Spanish Civil War, lunched with Katharine Graham, lost her first husband in WWII, fled the country just in the nick of time to avoid her very own McCarthy hearing, and dedicated her life to uncovering institutional corruption and scamming of the the American public. Through it all, she retained her excellent sense of humor, her undeniable charm, and an unmistakable grace. It is a little disapointing that this book ends when it does, as Decca certainly continued to lead a fascinating life. However, it is always a priveledge to see inside the Mitford family, especially from the point of view of someone who felt that she was an outsider in the family (whether that was actually true or not is up for discussion).
Rating:
Summary: More Marvellous Mitford
Review: The Mitford sisters are now immortal, and are one of the most astounding collection of people of their generation. Nancy's pursuit of love, Diana and Unity the facists, Pam and Deborah, the country ladies, and Jessica the communist. The childhood that Jessica recorded in Hons and Rebels is easily recognisable in The Pursuit of Love, and Love in a Cold Climate. What happened next was entirely different, while the other sisters were in jail, or shooting themselves, or maintaining huge estates in the country, Jessica married a communist, and relative of Churchill (the Mitfords themselves were relatives of Churchill), who ran away from Eton. Esmond was killed in the War, and Jessica married again, and began her career as a 'muckraker' - uncovering the incredible and macabre world of American funerals, and being suspected of Un-American Activities. This book is fascinating, amusing, and, like the stories of all the sisters, quite sad, in a way. Anybody who is interested in the English Aristocracy of the early 20th Century would do well to read this book.
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