The Pursuit of Love: Now a major series on BBC and Prime Video directed by Emily Mortimer and starring Lily James and Andrew Scott (Penguin Essentials, 85) - Softcover

Mitford, Nancy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241984076 ISBN 13: 9780241984079

Publisher: Penguin, 2018

Synopsis

Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love is one of the funniest, sharpest novels about love and growing up ever written.

'He was the great love of her life you know.'
'Oh, dulling,' said my mother, sadly, 'One always thinks that. Every, every time.'

Longing for love, obsessed with weddings and let's not even mention the mysteries of sex, Linda and her sisters and cousin Fanny are on the hunt for the ideal lover. But finding the perfect match is much harder than any of the sisters had ever dreamed. Linda is first courted by a Tory MP and then becomes embroiled with a handsome but humourless communist, before she risks everything on a chance at real, head-over-heels love in war-torn Paris . . .

'Peerless' Zoe Heller

About this title

Review:

Utter, utter bliss (Daily Mail)

A dazzling comic delight. (Fiona Wilson, The Times, Saturday Review)

The story's genius lies in its wicked humour, which remains relentlessly uplifting even as the Blitz begin to smash all the hopes of that pre-war arcadia (Olivia Laing, The Guardian)

too spiky and intelligent, I think, to qualify as an altogether cosy read [...] beneath the brittle surface of Mitford's wit there is something infinitely more melancholy at work - something that is apt to snag you and pull you into its dark undertow when you are least expecting it (Zoë Heller, The Telegraph)

Nancy Mitford taught the wonderful truth that laughter can see you through the darkest hours of your life (Daily Mail)

The Millennial faint-hearted will be appalled by Mitford's depiction of class and gender. But Mitford's triumph is that, as the Radletts live and laugh and cry, we [cry] with them (Julie Parsons, The Irish Times)

In her novels Nancy mastered her life, making everyone who was different or difficult into figures of mirth, moving only among the aristocracy, and infusing the world with a spirit of lazy, delightful romance (Natasha Walter, The Independent)

A dazzling comic delight.

(Fiona Wilson, The Times, Saturday Review)

About the Author:

Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) was born in London, the eldest child of the second Baron Redesdale. She had written four novels, including Wigs on the Green (1935), before the success of The Pursuit of Love in 1945, which she followed with Love in a Cold Climate (1949), The Blessing (1951) and Don't Tell Alfred (1960). She also wrote four works of biography. Nancy Mitford was awarded the CBE in 1972.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0241984076
• ISBN 13: 9780241984079
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224