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Wait for Me!: Memoirs by Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire
This weekend, we figured out the new loan function on the Kindle, and Mom loaned me her copy of Jill Paton Walsh's new Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane mystery, The Attenbury Emeralds. I zipped through it by Saturday night*. I find it to be an excellent Wimsey/Vane fanfic. Walsh will never be Sayers, but I will happily read her Sayers fic, and she kept me turning pages quite fast.
Anyway, once I finished it I was casting about for the next book to read, when my eyes fell on a sample I'd downloaded to my Kindle for the Duchess of Devonshire's memoirs, Wait for Me! I read through the sample and promptly bought the book, because I was very obviously in the mood to read about the British aristocracy in the first half of the 20th century after finishing Walsh. :)
The Duchess was the youngest of the famous (and infamous!) Mitford sisters, daughters of an aristocratic family, many of whom became writers and were politically outspoken ... Diana was a Fascist, Jessica a Communist, and Unity adored Hitler.
Deborah took the most traditional path for her life, marrying into the Cavendish family. Her husband, Andrew, was the second son but when his brother was killed in combat during WWII he became the heir to the duchy of Devonshire.
I knew next to nothing about the Mitford sisters, except for Jessica Mitford's book The American Way of Death, as I'd read parts of it for a class on the sociology of death and dying that I took in undergrad, and vaguely hearing about the Mitford family in passing. Reading this was eye-opening in how well-known and well-connected they were, especially after Deborah became Duchess of Devonshire. I'd also forgotten that Mom and I visited Chatsworth, the ancestral home, bask in 2003 or so. :)
Mitford doesn't tell her story completely chronologically, rambling down one path or another for a while, and by the end of the book there were so many names thrown at me that they started sliding off - if I'd had the paper copy, I could have utilized the index to search for the first mention of whoever this or that person was, but the Kindle would have required searching and I wasn't up for that.
It's a study in the sheer wealth and privilege held by the class of people like the Mitfords and Cavendishes, but there were plenty of times when I could sympathize with her, especially during the war years when she, like everyone else in the U.K., lost so many people close to her during the war, and her accounts of losing several children at birth.** The lifestyle of the landed gentry is alien to me, which makes it fascinating.
I'm also impressed by her love for and management of Chatsworth - I'm a sucker for historic homes, and it was interesting to learn the recent history of someplace I'd actually been.
Anyway, if you're interested in the subject matter, recommended. :)
* The advantage of a birthday party honoring a 90-year-old that is full of elderly retired pilots, is that everybody eats and leaves by 8, and we were back at the hotel by 8:30.
** Death equalizes everybody, hm?
Wait for Me!: Memoirs
The Attenbury Emeralds: The New Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane Mystery
Anyway, once I finished it I was casting about for the next book to read, when my eyes fell on a sample I'd downloaded to my Kindle for the Duchess of Devonshire's memoirs, Wait for Me! I read through the sample and promptly bought the book, because I was very obviously in the mood to read about the British aristocracy in the first half of the 20th century after finishing Walsh. :)
The Duchess was the youngest of the famous (and infamous!) Mitford sisters, daughters of an aristocratic family, many of whom became writers and were politically outspoken ... Diana was a Fascist, Jessica a Communist, and Unity adored Hitler.
Deborah took the most traditional path for her life, marrying into the Cavendish family. Her husband, Andrew, was the second son but when his brother was killed in combat during WWII he became the heir to the duchy of Devonshire.
I knew next to nothing about the Mitford sisters, except for Jessica Mitford's book The American Way of Death, as I'd read parts of it for a class on the sociology of death and dying that I took in undergrad, and vaguely hearing about the Mitford family in passing. Reading this was eye-opening in how well-known and well-connected they were, especially after Deborah became Duchess of Devonshire. I'd also forgotten that Mom and I visited Chatsworth, the ancestral home, bask in 2003 or so. :)
Mitford doesn't tell her story completely chronologically, rambling down one path or another for a while, and by the end of the book there were so many names thrown at me that they started sliding off - if I'd had the paper copy, I could have utilized the index to search for the first mention of whoever this or that person was, but the Kindle would have required searching and I wasn't up for that.
It's a study in the sheer wealth and privilege held by the class of people like the Mitfords and Cavendishes, but there were plenty of times when I could sympathize with her, especially during the war years when she, like everyone else in the U.K., lost so many people close to her during the war, and her accounts of losing several children at birth.** The lifestyle of the landed gentry is alien to me, which makes it fascinating.
I'm also impressed by her love for and management of Chatsworth - I'm a sucker for historic homes, and it was interesting to learn the recent history of someplace I'd actually been.
Anyway, if you're interested in the subject matter, recommended. :)
* The advantage of a birthday party honoring a 90-year-old that is full of elderly retired pilots, is that everybody eats and leaves by 8, and we were back at the hotel by 8:30.
** Death equalizes everybody, hm?
Wait for Me!: Memoirs
The Attenbury Emeralds: The New Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane Mystery
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Trust me.
---L.
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Meta: I need another reading icon besides this one.
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Yeah, she seems to have a great eye for business, and is willing to take chances on things. Not all of the enterprises she started to fund Chatsworth panned out, but quite a few of them did.
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Incidentally, Chatsworth seem to have different exhibitions on every year, and they're all very detailed and visual and interesting, in my opinion. Definitely worth going back to when you're next in Derbyshire. : )
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I'd definitely like to go back - I mostly remember wandering around the garden, and the sculpture gallery.