Rating: 
Summary: Those wacky fascists--doncha just adore them!
Review: I was vastly disappointed in this gushy bio, and can only assume that it was published because there's an easy market among PBS anglophiles. Save your money, and read Nancy's or Jessica's bios. The tone is slavishly [worshipful]-- one really can forgive the posh for anything: they're just sooo beautiful and charming. Her delight in conferring with the Duchess of Devonshire is merely pathetic, but her apologia for the behavior of the Mosely's is purely bizarre. Yes, facist black shirts are slightly de trop, but gosh Diana's eyes were very blue, and it's evident they were ever so much in love. Creepy. Although a have a PC knee-jerk discomfort with her attacks on Jessica, who really is something of a sacred cow, the author seems as unnessecarily vitriolic toward her as she is gushy and forgiving to the Moseleys. Ditto the general prisms and prunes atitude toward the gracious and familial, e.g., although several sisters Jessica and Nancy in adult life considered their mother to have been distant and glacial, Lovell neverthe less insists they must be deluded. After all, Lady Redesdale was such a lovely person, even if she continued to nurse an amusing penchant for that nice Mr. Hitler throughout her life. But he had been so gracious when they visited him in the 30's...all those lovely lunches. Ick. On a more pedantic level, the book is extraordinarily poorly edited. Events or personages will be mentioned in passing, and dropped until they figure chronologically 30 pages on.
Rating: 
Summary: It's a great book to learn the life of the Mitford Family
Review: If you like reading auto-biographical books or finding out more juicy gossip about the Mitford Family you would like this book. I personally thought it was a great book but a bit lacking in backgrund of the other Mitford's. I suggest that if you will like to read some information on The Mitford Family you should read Nacy Mitfords' The Pursuit of Love and Love In A Cold Climate.
Rating: 
Summary: The Ultimate Introduction to the Mitfords
Review: Mary S. Lovell does a wonderful job of introducing the sisters and remaining unbiased when divulging their controversial
politics. Each sister has her own agenda, and the reader will find it impossible to put this book down. Lovell reveals the
endless web of celebrities (JFK), politicians (Hitler), and English aristocracy to move in and out of the sisters lives.
Be prepared to be drawn into the Mitford Saga, and take advantage of the hundreds of bibliography references as
additional sources to read. Superb!
Rating:
Summary: Powerfully Engaging Story
Review: Mary S. Lovell made a wise decision when she took up her pen and joined the Mitford industry. The Sisters (The Saga of the Mitford Family) is a truly fascinating and endlessly engaging book. And there was no way it could not be with those crazy Mitfords: Nancy, Jessica, Debo, Diana, Pam and, of course, the very tragic Unity Valkyrie, conceived at Swastika Canada and devoted friend of Hitler. The story of these sisters spans the twentienth century and travels all over the political spectrum. The author shows her own conservative bias clearly throughout and was obviousaly charmed by Diana Mosely (nee Mitford), the still living wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Fascists during the interwar years. But her prejudices and political naivete (the author's suggestion that World War II could possibly have been avoided if Diana just brought Hitler and Churchill, a relative of hers, together is quite silly and should have been edited out) are so apparent that one can enjoy the book regardless. The portrayal of the mother of the girls, Sydney, is the most interesting to come along of her. A wonderful, delightful read of six powerfully individual women.
Rating:
Summary: Powerfully Engaging Story
Review: Mary S. Lovell made a wise decision when she took up her pen and joined the Mitford industry. The Sisters (The Saga of the Mitford Family) is a truly fascinating and endlessly engaging book. And there was no way it could not be with those crazy Mitfords: Nancy, Jessica, Debo, Diana, Pam and, of course, the very tragic Unity Valkyrie, conceived at Swastika Canada and devoted friend of Hitler. The story of these sisters spans the twentienth century and travels all over the political spectrum. The author shows her own conservative bias clearly throughout and was obviousaly charmed by Diana Mosely (nee Mitford), the still living wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Fascists during the interwar years. But her prejudices and political naivete (the author's suggestion that World War II could possibly have been avoided if Diana just brought Hitler and Churchill, a relative of hers, together is quite silly and should have been edited out) are so apparent that one can enjoy the book regardless. The portrayal of the mother of the girls, Sydney, is the most interesting to come along of her. A wonderful, delightful read of six powerfully individual women.
Rating:
Summary: Thank your stars you weren't the parents of this crew
Review: Mary S. Lovell's biography of the famous, infamous, and infinitely interesting Mitford sisters is a truly engaging book. 'Those crazy Mitford girls' is how they were known during their heyday, and this book will prolong and perpetuate that sobriquet. There were 6 of them, plus one handsome and doted-upon male sibling who went and got himself killed during the war, leaving the road clear for the girls to completely dominate. Lovell succeeds in making each girl unique for us, so we don?t get them confused, a real feat with so many characters. The Mitford sisters obliged, however, and made Lovell's task easier by being 6 entirely different personalities. It seems the only thing they had in common was good looks. They ranged from Fascist Hitler-lovers (Diana) to communists (Jessica). The story of their lives spans the 20th century and is well worth the read on many levels. Just pity the Mitford sisters long-suffering parents.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling Saga of a Fascinating Family
Review: Mitfordphiles will be glad to read this detailed account of the family and its role in modern English literary society. The author writes clearly and affectionately of the family and has brought a wealth of new information to the subject. Of course, it is amusing to compare the facts to the fiction the famous sisters wrote. But the Mitfords are interesting in their own right as part of an era that is now gone. Lovell's account is compelling. This book is a must for all Mitford devotees.
Rating:
Summary: An informative and fascinating book about a famous family
Review: The author warns readers in the first few pages that people under the age of 50 probably won't be interested in this book. I am a few years past 50 and can see why younger readers would be confused. Unless you lived during WWII you cannot begin to appreciate this story. I did not know much about the Mitford sisters altho was aware of Jessica, Nancy and Diana. I did not realize until I read this book that Unity lived so long after her suicide attempt. It is a book that gives an excellent view of a time and way of living that is now gone. The Mitfords were cash poor, but managed trips, coming out seasons, servants for their various homes, etc. It is difficult for us to understand that way of life. The Mitford parents might seem eccentric, but they were not that unusual really for their class. Many photographs added interest to this book. I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in history and how life was lived in England during WWII.
Rating:
Summary: And you think YOUR siblings are a problem!
Review: The Mitford clan was the epitome of old English gentry and minor aristocracy. The father of the sisters who are the subject of this book, DAVID MITFORD, 2nd Baron Redesdale, was related to Winston Churchill. Their mother, SYDNEY BOWLES MITFORD, came from a distinguished family.
NANCY (1904-1973) was the oldest and became a hugely successful writer of satirical fiction that poked savage fun at her own family and class.
PAMELA (1907-1994) was the most "normal" of the lot. She married and divorced a scientist, and was content to live quietly in the country.
DIANA (1910-2003) was one of the two most controversial sisters. Beautiful and charming, she was the muse of several artists in her teens, and married the heir to the Guinness brewing fortune when she was 18. She left him four years and two babies later and ran off with Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists and the most hated man in England. They remained devoted to each other for the rest of their lives, which made her the most hated woman in England. They were imprisoned for more than three years during the war but never wavered in their commitment to both fascism and each other.
UNITY VALKYRIE (1914-1948), known as "Boud" or "Bobo" to her sisters, was by far the most controversial sister. A striking Valkyrie-esque beauty, Unity, who was conceived during her parents' sojourn in the unfortunately-named town of Swastika, Canada, lived up to her karma by becoming obsessed with Nazism while in her teens. She managed to meet Hitler and become obsessed with her new friend and proudly wore her Hitler-signed swastika badge everywhere. When England and Germany declared war, she tried to commit suicide, but botched the job, shooting herself in the head but not killing herself. Incontinent and childlike, she lived in the care of her mother for another ten years.
JESSICA (1917-1996) "Decca" was probably the best-known of the sisters to American audiences. At the age of 18, already a committed Communist, she ran off with her black-sheep cousin Esmond Romilly, a nephew of Churchill's, to fight in the Spanish Civil War. After the British sent a battleship to fetch her home, the young Romillys went to the US where they tried to make a living as writers and bar-tenders before Esmond enlisted in the Canadian army. He was killed on a mission over the North Sea. Decca found a job with the American Communist party, moved to Oakland, remarried, had another child, and wrote several muck-raking books, of which "The American Way of Death" is the best known. The success of her books enabled her to leave her job with the Party, with which she had become disenchanted as the stories of Stalin's wretched excesses spread, but she remained a radical until she died.
DEBORAH (1920 -2004) Raised alone by her eccentric parents after her sibs had left the home, "Debo" was the mediator between her warring family, in which some one was always on "non-speakers" with someone else. Debo married Andrew Cavendish, second son of the Duke of Devonshire, whose older son and heir to the title, Billy, had married JFK's sister Kathleen. Billy died in the war a few months later and as soon as it was established that Kathleen wasn't pregnant, the title passed to Andrew, making Debo the Duchess. They inherited Cavendish, a huge estate, along with other properties, and she lived quietly there until her death, turning the estate into one of the major tourist attractions in England.
OK, that's the cast. There was also a son, but he gets short shrift, compared to his amazing sisters.
The book itself: The 22 chapters, ranging from 1894 to 2000, trace, in somewhat diminishing degrees of detail, the lives of this eccentric gang. The footnotes alone run to 46 pages. Lovell had free access to family papers and letters. There is also a 4-page bibliography and a 26-page index. There are also three sections of photographs.
The only complaint I have is that there is no real explanation of the forces that drove three of the sisters to commit their lives, in the face of overwhelming opposition and adversity, to the three most oppressive, repressive, and totalitarian forms of dictatorship known. We get a hint about Decca, who seems to have reacted in a knee-jerk way to Diana's involvement with Mosley and his Fascism and, at the behest of Esmond Romilly, comes to see her family as not only the symbol of all that is evil in the world, but also as the literal, actual cause of it. But Decca's eye-opening occurred before she met him, and that's the puzzle. And what drove Unity to immerse herself in Nazism? We never learn. Diana's commitment to Fascism is a little easier to understand. As the deb and then bride of the year, she lived an incredibly wealthy, social, and shallow life, and it wasn't until she met the dashing Mosley that she ever gave a thought to politics. So for her to follow the man she loved into the belly of a hated belief system isn't too surprising. She may have initially embraced fascism for the sake of Mosley and their relationship - understandable, if regrettable - but her steadfast commitment to it, which lasted until her death in 2003, is harder to comprehend.
Whether or not you agree with the beliefs they held, this was a fascinating group of people and the author does an excellent job of bringing them to believable life.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating but flawed
Review: The Mitford family is of course a compelling topic, and as a result Lovell's book grabs the reader from Page One. The author does a commendable good job of sorting out fact from fiction. But why on earth has she let Diana and Oswald Mosley and Unity Mitford off so easily? She accepts the Mosleys' excuses for their horrific beliefs -- "We weren't really anti-Semitic and racist; we were just looking out for England's best interest." And Unity -- well, the poor dear was prone to obsession, and Hitler was just another of her hobbies. Yet Decca and Esmond take a beating for the heinous crime of... eloping? What gives?
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