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Daughters and Rebels: an autobiography

by Jessica Mitford

4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 · rating details · 2,203 ratings · 171 reviews

This wondrous memoir of growing up in the Mitford clan is also known by the title "Hons and Rebels" on the GR site.

Nook , 0 pages

Published August 18th 2011 by BookRags.com (first published 1960)

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Nov 20, 2011 Richard Reviles Censorship Always in All Ways rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Rating: 4.25* of five

I fastened on this at a liberry sale I went to recently, remembering that some fellow LTer was on a Mitford Girls kick. I was inspired to buy it by its ten cent price and also its ghastly, 60s-Penguin "artwork" cover. I like that it says "3/6" for a price, so exotic and incomprehensible. And also, The American Way of Death made a **huge** impression on me as a boy, so I wanted to know more about Miss Mitford.

Oh, the joys of being in a master's hands. Mitford dashes off, appa Rating: 4.25* of five

I fastened on this at a liberry sale I went to recently, remembering that some fellow LTer was on a Mitford Girls kick. I was inspired to buy it by its ten cent price and also its ghastly, 60s-Penguin "artwork" cover. I like that it says "3/6" for a price, so exotic and incomprehensible. And also, The American Way of Death made a **huge** impression on me as a boy, so I wanted to know more about Miss Mitford.

Oh, the joys of being in a master's hands. Mitford dashes off, apparently effortlessly, sketches of her bizarre family, never straying into hatefulness even where antipathy exists. Her completely unconventional upbringing wuth a mother who refused to vaccinate her (a decision with a horrible, tragic cost later: Mitford contracted measles and gave them to her newborn daughter, who died as a result), contending that "the Good Body" knew its stuff, and a father whose major occupations appear to have been shouting and stomping and campaigning for Conservative politicians. Her wildly disparate sisters, novelist Nancy as the eldest and the most remote from Jessica; Diana, the great beauty and future Fascist; and Unity, the tragic figure of the family, a giant Valkyrie (ironically enough, this is also her middle name!) with an outsized personality to match, whose horrible fate was to try unsuccessfully to kill herself when her beloved Nazi Germany made war on her homeland. (The other sisters, Pam and Deborah, pretty much don't figure into Jessica's life, and her brother Tom was so much older he was more of a visiting uncle.)

So Jessica tells us the tale of someone born into privilege, luxury, and uselessness, who finds all of these qualities completely intolerable and who cannot, cannot, cannot endure the idea of the life that is laid out before her. She doesn't know what she believes, but she's sure it's not what her family believes.

I fell in love with her right then and there. I felt the same way. Jesus, racism, and conservative politics made me nauseated, as they did my eldest sister.

So Jessica Mitford, Girl Rebel, looks for a way out: Her cousin Esmond, a professional rebel with a published book and a troublemaking newspaper founded and run before he was 16, fit the bill. She spends a year finagling an introduction to him, suprisingly difficult because she's so sheltered and he's so disreputable; but once it happens, it was the proverbial match to gas!

I adored Esmond as much as Jessica did, and I adored Jessica as much as Esmond did. I cried when they lost their first daughter so unnecessarily; I cheered when they got to own that bar in Miami; I sat numbed by the enormity of Jessica's loss when Esmond died when he was 23, fighting against the Fascists he'd hated all his life, whether Spanish, English, or German.

I am so glad that I finally read this book that's as old as I am, being published in 1960. (My copy isn't that old, it dates from 1962.) It's very instructive to be reminded that youth isn't necessarily wasted on the young.

If you take my advice, you'll read it to experience the joys and sorrows of youth one more time, from a safe distance; but the stakes remain high, because the storyteller is so talented. ...more

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Sep 04, 2007 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anybody who'd love to kick Hitler's ass

Shelves: favorites , badgirls , mycuppa , dreamlives

Like J.K. Rowling, I worship Jessica "Decca" Mitford. If I had a daughter, I'd name her after Jessica, who was born into an aristocratic family, ran away with her hunky Communist cousin to fight in the Spanish Civil War, emigrated to the United States without a penny, and became a muckraking journalist with no formal schooling. My mouth was agape the entire time I read HONS AND REBELS...it seemed incredible that Mitford's story wasn't fiction. She devoted her life to fighting fascism, even while ...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Carol Storm rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Witty and smart -- but maybe a little lacking in heart.

It's hard not to like Jessica Mitford. She was born into a world of aristocratic privilege in England, became a Communist, moved to America, and spent her whole life fighting against racism, sexism, and religious hypocrisy. She was as fearless standing up to Klansmen in Mississippi as she was standing up to Brownshirts and Blackshirts in Europe.

So it should be very exciting to read the story of her growing up. Jessica had a very large famil Witty and smart -- but maybe a little lacking in heart.

It's hard not to like Jessica Mitford. She was born into a world of aristocratic privilege in England, became a Communist, moved to America, and spent her whole life fighting against racism, sexism, and religious hypocrisy. She was as fearless standing up to Klansmen in Mississippi as she was standing up to Brownshirts and Blackshirts in Europe.

So it should be very exciting to read the story of her growing up. Jessica had a very large family, and her sisters were all just as notorious and exciting as she was in different ways. But not all of them were as smart about the world. Diana fell in love with Oswald Moseley, the English fascist, and was ostracized from polite society as a traitor for most of her life. Unity's fate was even more horrific, she fell in love with Adolph Hitler, became a fanatical "Jew-hater" (in her own words) and then tried to kill herself when England declared war on Nazi Germany. In a ghastly accident, the bullet lodged in her head and she became permanently brain-damaged, only to die several years later.

Now with all this tragedy and suffering, you would expect Jessica Mitford to have something to say about what was missing from her childhood. But there's a weird disconnect in the way she condemns her sisters' politics but entirely avoids the question of what made them so angry that they would literally need to stomp on strangers just to feel good about themselves. The real answer begins at home -- but Jessica, while ridiculing her parents' snobbery, is strangely silent about the underlying coldness and lack of love in her childhood home. At times you get the impression that Jessica herself really doesn't get that there's anything "strange" about a girl falling in love with Adolph Hitler, or talking openly about suicide as her only alternative if things go bad. This book has plenty of wit, plenty of eccentric characters, but very little insight and no heart at all. ...more

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Dec 31, 2010 Ali rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's quite surprising that I hadn't read this book before - as I have become a little addicted to reading about the mad bad Mitfords. This is a really well written, funny memoir from one of those infamous sisters. If anyone asked me who my favourite Mitford was it would be Nancy every time, the most fascinating was Diana, but the one I would have most likely liked in real life - would have been Jessica. Her warmth and likability come across strongly in this book, and she was able to poke gentle ...more

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Mar 18, 2010 Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bios

Jessica Mitford was the "Ballroom Communist" of the engagingly eccentric Mitford Family. The second youngest daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdalee, she had an unconventional upbringing where education was the bare minimum to make a good wife. Always wishing for an escape from her family, be it through schooling or politics or moving to another continent, she suffered through being a deb and presentation before the queen and watching her family come apart at the seems due to adivergence in beliefs Jessica Mitford was the "Ballroom Communist" of the engagingly eccentric Mitford Family. The second youngest daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdalee, she had an unconventional upbringing where education was the bare minimum to make a good wife. Always wishing for an escape from her family, be it through schooling or politics or moving to another continent, she suffered through being a deb and presentation before the queen and watching her family come apart at the seems due to adivergence in beliefs. But at her first chance she ran off with her cousin, Esmond Rommilly , the nephew of Winston Churchill, to fight Franco in Spain. What with all of England trying to force her home, sending really big ships no less, even the courts of Chancery, it's surprising that she actually was able to succeed in her convictions and in marryingEsmond. The madcap and eccentric life that followed from Rotherhithe to the United States with Esmond equals that of her earlier life, but with herself being the master of her fate.

I rarely read biographies. I have to say, if more biographies were as fun and enjoyable as Jessica Mitford's I would read nothing but. The Mitford family has always been fascinating to me, what with the sisters paths being so divergent. Nancy was one of the "Bright Young Things" and a literary darling, with Love in a Cold Climate, which basically skewered her own family for her amusement. Pamela was horse obsessed and kind of out of the limelight. Diana married the heir to the Guinness fortune then divorced him to have an affair with the head of the British Facist party. When they eventually married, Hitler was at their wedding, which was held at the Goebbels' house. She also spent time in prison. Unity was Hitler's biggest fan and when war broke out between England and Germany she failed at committing suicide only to die of meningitis. AndDebo... well she married the Duke of Devonshire and lives at Chatsworth , writes books about chickens and is the last remaining Mitford daughter. You could not make this stuff up! From her earliest days with family to her later life withEsmond, Jessica captures the love she had for these people while at the same time the exasperation of her situation . From hoarding money so she could run away, to the ultimate subterfuge that resulted in her being victorious, even if she had to chase the SpanishConsulate representative all over England and France. To the years scarping by in the States doing anything and everything to stay there, from selling stockings door to door to being a bouncer at a bar. That's right, Jessica, not her husband, was the bouncer.

Given the extreme fame of her family and the career Jessica later established as a journalist in her own right, if a muckracker at that, it's beyond enjoyable to see where it all began. The fact that a high born Hon would eschew her family and their beliefs to set out on her own crusade for right, for the poor and disadvantaged, is a noble crusade indeed. But what you also see is that with Esmond, this is a love story. From her first hearing mention of him, she was in love. From their similar backgrounds of trying to shed off what was their families hereditary hangups, she envied him for his actual escape and later he aided her escape as well. Whether he felt the same inevitability as her that they were meant to be is hinted at. But what is certain is that they were perfectly matched. It makes sense that the book ends with the outbreak of World War II. It's the event that, more than anything, shaped that generation, but more personally than that, embodied the division of this family. It was also the event that would claim Esmond's life. But at least in this book, we can see the love still remains. ...more

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Aug 05, 2009 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british , classics , memoirs

Jessica Mitford's dashing and dramatic life story is almost too good to be true from a biography standpoint--and she's so utterly appealing that I think I have a bit of crush on her. Aristocratic and hilariously eccentric upbringing, one of the famous/infamous Mitford sisters (their number including a noted writer in Nancy, not one but TWO Nazis, and a communist--that's Jessica), elopement with her dreamy second cousin and their travels to go fight in the Spanish Civil War, emmigrating to Americ ...more

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Feb 10, 2011 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A spotty memoir that glides over much of the author's early life while providing details on some seemingly random episodes. The picture of her wacky childhood is charmingly told albeit somewhat terrifying to contemplate - I could have used more about each Mitford sister and more insight into how this teeming brood of aristos wound up careening off in wildly different directions. After a gripping tale of Decca's escape to Civil War Spain with her cousin, the teenaged antifascist Esmond Romilly, t ...more

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Nov 27, 2007 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: people who wish they were British

My favorite part about this book was the author's description of her childhood. Her family was delightfully quirky and snobby. I also enjoyed the section about Mitford and her husband selling stockings. However, I did not enjoy most of the parts that involved her relationship with her husband. I have a feeling I would not have liked her husband much. He seemed to have a dilettantish interest in fascism and social justice, and really struck me as being sort of naive and clueless.

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Jan 19, 2013 Brenda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction , memoir

I'm in a the midst of another bout of Mitford mania, which is something I come down with every five years or so. Maybe it is because I just finished reading The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate but I did not enjoy Jessica's more realistic take on things in her autobiography Hons and Rebels.

Let me rephrase that. I enjoyed the first half of Hons and Rebels decently enough. It was interesting to hear from Jessica's point of view as one of the younger Mitford girls and she did have a diff ...more

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Dec 15, 2012 Margaret rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-memoir , nyrb , non-fiction , read-fall-2012 , the-mitfords

Jessica Mitford's sarcastic and witty tone is directed at her own family in her memoir, Hons and Rebels , of her life growing up in aristocratic English family during the 1920's and 30's. Her upbringing, education by governesses, and adventures with her large family (including some very eccentric sisters) are right out of a 19th century novel for girls, or a PBS period drama. At the same time, Jessica is growing up when her parents strongly believe in the old-fashioned perspectives of the English ...more

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Feb 27, 2008 Josie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Josie by: katie

Shelves: non-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I liked this, but...

And I don't know what comes next, just that there is a but. Maybe it would have been better split into two books. The first half, about Decca's childhood, is light-hearted (I just about died when I read her description of giving her father daily palsy practice). The second half is - well, it still has its funny moments, but it's slightly disturbing too. I was actually getting really worried over Decca and Esmond's naivety and their ability to lose money so quickly. The emotio ...more

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Aug 28, 2015 Emma rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015 , autobiography-memoir , fearful_snobs , family_families , communism_socialism , teen-angst

Hmm, well, I loved hearing about all the Mitfords Junior. Decca's unreconstructed if very loyal view of Esmond Romilly not so much. They were not such a likeable couple in the American years. Anyway, throughout, Mitford is maybe not quite self-aware enough to make this book really draw you in. But hey it's a memoir, that can happen. Some other reviewer says she lacked insight and I'm inclined to agree somewhat, though to have come as far as she did in the direction she did from the background th ...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Nigeyb rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wonderful book. Poignant, insightful, interesting - and left me wanting to find out more about Jessica Mitford . I have purchased Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford to read soon. I wish I had more time to write about this book - I may come back and edit this review to make it more fulsome. However, for now, if you have an interest in this era then this is an excellent memoir and well worth reading.

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Nov 03, 2014 Amy Jones rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found the first third really hard going, but as soon as Diana and Boud started going to Germany I was hooked. Grown-up Decca was a lot more interesting than child Decca!

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Nov 19, 2014 Czarny Pies rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Des fans du clan Mitford.

Recommended to Czarny by: J.K. Rowling, bruyamment

Shelves: english-lit

Jessica Mitford est la soeur cadette de Nancy Mitford. L'opinion qui prevaut est que Nancy a été la plus talentueuse des deux mais il y a des gens qui aime mieux Jessica. On admire Jessica pour sa force de ses convictions et son lutte sans relache pour la justice sociale.

Adolescente elle est devenue member partie de la communiste et a épousé un homme malgré la forte opposition de ses parents ce qui lui a force d'émigrer aux Etats Unis ou elle était tres engage dans la lutte pour les droits des ...more

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Sep 16, 2014 Sarah Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jessica "Decca" Mitford is first and foremost famous for being one of the famous Mitford sisters and only later for her great muckraking journalism in the United States. Therefore it's ironic that in her autobiography, she describes in detail how stifling she found her infamous family and her great escape and elopement.

Decca comes across as completely unsentimental in her writing. Despite being part of a large family and being raised with only her siblings for companions, her sole preoccupation Jessica "Decca" Mitford is first and foremost famous for being one of the famous Mitford sisters and only later for her great muckraking journalism in the United States. Therefore it's ironic that in her autobiography, she describes in detail how stifling she found her infamous family and her great escape and elopement.

Decca comes across as completely unsentimental in her writing. Despite being part of a large family and being raised with only her siblings for companions, her sole preoccupation in childhood is devoted to her eventual escape and raising funds for her running away account. After reading this, I'm unsurprised to hear that she was criticized as portraying her parents in a negative light, since she is frank about her childhood opinions and how she views her parents as ignorant and stuffy, and depriving their daughters of an education. She describes her isolated childhood saying, "It was as though I were a figurine traveling inside one of those little glass spheres in which an artificial snowstorm arises when the sphere is shaken - and no matter where I was, in a train, a boat, a foreign hotel, there was no escape outside the glass" (52).

Rather than feeling guilty when she disappears and runs away without a word, she is annoyed with the fuss, even after her sister Nancy describes the turmoil over her disappearance as being "just like a funeral" (158). She treats her siblings in a similar manner, not bothering to keep track of all of them but dismissing sisters as casually as saying, "Pam [was] off doing something or other in the country" (95). However, I don't think Decca is being intentionally cruel; I think her personality is just naturally inclined to easily dismiss others and not concern herself with details of others' lives. For example, Decca describes her baby's death in this autobiography, but does so swiftly and with sparse details. Although the reader can imagine her pain, she doesn't dwell on the loss but quickly moves on.

In the same way, Decca doesn't remark on her family's obvious fame, but simply causally refers to the publicity surrounding her runaway stunt. "There had been a small flurry of publicity shortly after we arrived, when the New York papers briefly revived the story of our running away to Spain" (210). Similarly, she casually remarks on her sister Unity (called Boud by Decca)'s close relationship to Hitler, and his response to hearing how Decca had run off. Although I suppose for Decca, in her family being well-known and knowing well-known people was the usual.

I do love the Mitford sisters with their famous friends, shocking actions, notoriety, and generous helping of quirks. As Decca describes them, "As a lost tribe, separated from its fellow men, gradually develops distinctive characteristics of language, behavior, outlook, so we developed idiosyncrasies that would no doubt have made us seem a little eccentric to other children our age" (5). At times I wonder what I would have made of this book had I not previously read a comprehensive biography of all six of the Mitford sisters, The Sisters by Mary S. Lovell, as well as two of eldest sister Nancy Mitford's novels, which have numerous characters based on the family.

I found the first half of this autobiography, which focuses on Decca's young childhood the most captivating. After Decca runs away and marries Esmond, the story shifts to focus on their escapades and careless living, full of get-rich schemes, broken down cars, unpaid bills, and a frenetic social life. Yet for a very unsentimental lady, you can sense Decca's true love for Esmond and grief over his youthful death when she says, "he was my whole world, my rescuer, the translator of all my dreams into reality, the fascinating companion of my whole adult life - three years, already - and the center of all happiness" (279). Like all her famous sisters, Decca is fascinating and captivating, and her autobiography lays bare her unusual life. ...more

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Jan 16, 2015 Marí rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015

Libro 11. A memoir. Ojalá hubiera seguido y seguido.

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Jul 24, 2015 Susan Chapek rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir-or-bio

This memoir of Mitford's life from birth to the beginning of World War II (there's a second volume, A Fine Old Conflict which I'm in the middle of now) reads like a historical coming-of-age, but light and witty and full of madly funny and engaging characters. There's plenty of deft social and political commentary, too--but don't let that keep you from trying this delightful book.

The only other autobiography I've enjoyed as much is that of Dodie Smith , who was pretty much a contemporary of Jessica ...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Hortense rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

fun and more fun, with a pinch of sadness. the communist couple's adventures in door to door sales of stockings, the tuxedo rental, all this is so amusing you are knocked off your little perch, in case you had one.

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Dec 02, 2008 Lady R.E. Miller rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: made-me-cry

This is one of those books you read that make you think you need to start doing more interesting stuff with your life. And also not give a damn about what thinks about it . . . Inspiring stuff (and funny.)

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Dec 07, 2013 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites

It was that good, I would like a copy in every room of my house.

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Feb 07, 2014 Kitty rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As brilliantly and wittily written as you'd expect from a Mitford, Jessica's account is also revealing, touching and quietly tragic. Starting with descriptions of her eccentric family and childhood she goes on to trace the dramatic political polarisation that took place in the thirties and which had such personal implications for her. The book ends as the Second World War begins in earnest, and the adventures and ideals that were shared so happily with her husband Esmond Romilly come to an abrup ...more

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Jan 22, 2014 Denise rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am a mad fan of all things Mitford. This was very different from other books I have read both about them and by them. Jessica seems to rail against her childhood from the start, having a difficult relationship with her father and some of her sisters. Did she lack the irony to understand Nancy? Anyway, she develops into a very unexpected Communist who is in thrall to her daredevil relation, Esmond Romilly. Soon she is running away, right into the centre of the Spanish Civil War, later into Amer ...more

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Apr 01, 2009 Jaylia3 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Though she was born into a wonderfully eccentric upper class English family, Jessica Mitford was set on escaping--she started a "running away" savings account at Drummond's Bank in London when she was twelve. At nineteen she eloped with her rebel cousin and they ran away together to the Spanish Civil War--an event that was Huge Big News at the time. Two of her sisters were friends with Hitler, and on hearing what Jessica had done even the poster child for evil was scandalized. (Well, that might Though she was born into a wonderfully eccentric upper class English family, Jessica Mitford was set on escaping--she started a "running away" savings account at Drummond's Bank in London when she was twelve. At nineteen she eloped with her rebel cousin and they ran away together to the Spanish Civil War--an event that was Huge Big News at the time. Two of her sisters were friends with Hitler, and on hearing what Jessica had done even the poster child for evil was scandalized. (Well, that might have had something to do with her communist politics.)

It's hard not to be captivated by this memoir--Jessica Mitford stopped at nothing to follow her dreams, and so is simultaneously both inspiring and shocking. She was smart and funny, but seemed to give little thought to how her out of bounds actions and petty larcenies would affect others. Her sisters took issue with some of her facts, and there is a too-good-to-be true quality to parts of the book that's completely forgivable because without them the book wouldn't be as lively or fun. It's maybe telling that, as Jessica reports, her husband regaled some their new American friends with truth-embellished versions of their adventures--to improve the stories, she says.

There is a fascinating inner reflection in the last few pages where Jessica admits that though she and her young husband, Esmond Romily, believed they were entirely "self-made", free agents who had totally escaped any taint of their English aristocratic upbringing, their impatience, carefree intransigence, and supreme self-confidence could be easily traced to their backgrounds.

Jessica Mitford ends this mainly happy book before her husband dies while fighting in World War Two. The book is also called Hons and Rebels. A great read.
...more

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Aug 11, 2009 Emma rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book reads like a love letter to Esmond Romilly...seen through rose tinted glasses of the past and of a first love.

I tried reading this book once before, but struggled to get past the sheer selfishness of both Decca and Esmond. When I first read this book I disliked both intensely, despising Esmond for driving a wedge between Decca and her family, and Decca for being so complacent.
However, I recently read the collection of letters between the 6 sisters and gained more respect for Decca.

I ...more

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Jan 05, 2011 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another Christmas present! Wow! Jessica Mitford, an English blue-blood, writes of her early years on a baronial estate in England. Considering that she and her siblings had no early education and then went to private school; had nannies and housekeepers and someone to pack their underwear in tissue when they traveled and didn't really know how to cook, they all made their way in the world with a BANG. The intracacies of English aristocracy with its hideous class system rankled Mitford early. She ...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Catherine Egan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jessica Mitford’s memoir takes the reader from her childhood, the fifth daughter in a large, eccentric, aristocratic family in early 20th century England, to her young adulthood as a socialist in Europe and then the United States. The Mitford sisters were notorious in their time. Nancy, the eldest, became a well-known novelist, frequently satirizing her own family, Diana married Britain’s fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, and Unity fell in love with Hitler, adopting his views to the letter, hal Jessica Mitford’s memoir takes the reader from her childhood, the fifth daughter in a large, eccentric, aristocratic family in early 20th century England, to her young adulthood as a socialist in Europe and then the United States. The Mitford sisters were notorious in their time. Nancy, the eldest, became a well-known novelist, frequently satirizing her own family, Diana married Britain’s fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, and Unity fell in love with Hitler, adopting his views to the letter, half-converting her parents to fascism, and finally attempting suicide when war broke out between England and Germany (the attempt left her brain damaged and she died some years later). Breaking the fascistic family mold, Jessica became a socialist and ran away with her rebellious second cousin Esmond when she was 17.

This book was almost a sure hit with me, as I am a die-hard Nancy Mitford fangirl. I gasped and giggled my way through the first half of the book, detailing the siblings’ bizarre upbringing, (I particularly enjoyed the image of Nancy Mitford sitting by the fire and giggling while writing her first novel, pillorying her family). The second half of the book, after she runs away to fight in the Spanish Civil War with Esmond (ending up married in the United States) is interesting but a little disjointed at times, and lacks the crazy sparkle of the first part, perhaps just because the subject matter is less absurd.

The book offers brilliantly witty and generally sympathetic character portraits (Jessica can be sharp but she is not unkind) as well as a scathing social commentary and a vivid portrait of the times. While the memoir is personal, it keeps its distance from painful personal matters. The death of her first child from measles in London at just a few months old is dealt with quickly in a single (excruciating) page. She delves much more enthusiastically into the absurdities of her childhood, and her own political awakening and growth. A lot of the book (certainly the second half) reads almost as a love letter to Esmond Romilly, her first husband. She excerpts a number of his writings and lovingly, laughingly details his escapades trying to make a living and get “in” with the right people after their move to the US. Reading snippets of his political journalism, it is remarkable to realize he died at the age of 23 (he joined the Canadian Air Force to fight in the second world war) and that really, they were barely grown-ups.

It’s an insightful, moving, hilarious book and made me want to reread Nancy Mitford’s novels and then read the sisters’ collected letters.
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Apr 12, 2010 Gary Land rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jessica Mitford's memoir of growing up in a thoroughly eccentric upper-class British family is an engaging read. Allowed little exposure to the world outside their home, the Mitford sisters created their own world, including development of their own language (hence the "hons" of the title)so that the adults would not know what they were saying. Mitford was increasingly bored with her stilted existence and describes being a debutante in the most unattractive terms. Gradually learning about the la ...more

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Jun 27, 2012 Helen Kitson added it · review of another edition

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According to Mitford, the Society of Hons that she and her sisters formed derived not from their aristocratic titles (Honourable) but from the Hens the family kept (the H of Hons is pronounced, as in Hens). Her autobiography is an enthralling picture of some of the real people behind the characters in Nancy Mitford's novels. The Mitfords were minor aristocracy, the family headed by larger-than-life Lord Redesdale, who seems to have hated just about everyone. Neither he nor his wife believed in e According to Mitford, the Society of Hons that she and her sisters formed derived not from their aristocratic titles (Honourable) but from the Hens the family kept (the H of Hons is pronounced, as in Hens). Her autobiography is an enthralling picture of some of the real people behind the characters in Nancy Mitford's novels. The Mitfords were minor aristocracy, the family headed by larger-than-life Lord Redesdale, who seems to have hated just about everyone. Neither he nor his wife believed in educating girls beyond what was necessary to make them marriageable and capable of running a household. The girls, however, had other ideas. Nancy, of course, is well-known for her novels, and Diana largely for marrying Oswald Mosley.

Jessica and Unity, however, became interested in politics. They were deeply divided, Unity throwing in her lot with the Fascists, Jessica finding an affinity with the Communists. Though it's hard, in view of her privileged background, not to sympathise with those who teased her for being a 'Ballroom Communist', Jessica was sincere in her espousal of Socialism. She gives us a very visual description of the room she shared with Unity in the family home - "We divided it down the middle, and [Unity] decorated her side with Fascist insignia of all kinds - the Italian 'fasces', a bundle of sticks bound with rope; photographs of Mussolini framed in passe-partout; photographs of Mosley trying to look like Mussolini; the new German swastika, a record collection of Nazi and Italian youth songs. My side was fixed up with my Communist library, a small bust of Lenin purchased for a shilling in a second-hand shop, a file of Daily Workers. Sometimes we would barricade with chairs and stage pitched battles, throwing books and records until Nanny came to tell us to stop the noise." As time passed, their differences hardened, to the point where Jessica remarks that "We both agreed we'd simply have to be prepared to fight on opposite sides, and even tried to picture what it would be like if one day one of us had to give the order for the other's execution."

Jessica ran away from home to join her cousin Esmond, whom she admired and quickly fell in love with. They lived a rather nomadic existence, living in France for a while before returning to live in London. Politically they come across as rather naive. Jessica clearly had no idea about some of the basic realities of living - "No one had ever explained to me that you had to pay for electricity..."; but it's impossible not to feel Jessica's sorrow when her 4-month-old baby died from complications following measles - "the day after the baby was buried we left for Corsica. There we lived for three months in the welcome unreality of a foreign town, shielded by distance from the sympathy of friends, returning only when the nightmare had begun to fade."

Her loathing for Unity's politics were complicated by the fact that Unity was the sister she loved best. When Unity returned home from Germany, having botched a suicide attempt on the outbreak of war, Jessica felt great sorrow and tried to reconcile her love for her sister with Unity's alliance with 'those grinning beasts and their armies of robot goose-steppers'. I think she's right when she says "It is perhaps futile to interpret the actions of another - one may be so completely wrong", and her explanation of Unity's suicide attempt as 'a sort of recognition of the extraordinary contradictions in which she found herself' doesn't quite convince.

This volume of autobiography ends at the point when England is plunged into WW2, although there is a poignant footnote stating that her husband 'was killed in action in November 1941, at the age of twenty-three'. [August 2004] ...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Laura Poole rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My rating of three stars does not by any means reflect how glad I am that I read this. As a memoir of the Mitfords it is limited (Decca has very little to say about certain siblings and I get the impression her difficult relationship with her family significantly restricted what she felt comfortable saying about them). However, as a memoir of a girl rebel who refused to accept the privileged life that was (conditionally) handed to her on a plate, this autobiography succeeds. That said, the tales ...more

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About Jessica Mitford

Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters. She gained American citizenship in later life.

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“A thirteen-year-old is a kaleidoscope of different personalities, if not in most ways a mere figment of her own imagination. At that age, what and who you are depends largely on what book you happen to be reading at the moment.” — 21 likes

“I discovered that Human Nature was not, as I had always supposed, a fixed and unalterable entity, that wars are not caused by a natural urge in men to fight, that ownership of land and factories is not necessarily the natural reward of greater wisdom and energy.” — 1 likes

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