Nancy Mitford

NANCY MITFORD has lived happily in the heart of Paris since the war. The first novel she wrote there was Love in a Cold Climate; her next, The Blessing, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in 1951. Now from wide reading and the liveliest observation she has drawn her gay, enchanting portrait of Madame de Pompadour, which is to be published by Random House this month and from which the Atlantic has been privileged to draw two installments. In the May issue Miss Mitford told us of the King’s coming of age in that most amazing of apartment houses, Versailles; of his marriage; of his eventual boredom with his Queen from Poland, who was seven years his senior; and of his meeting with the attractive and accomplished Madame d’Étioles, the future Madame de Pompadour, at a famous masked ball.

MANCY MITFORD has lived happily in the heart of Paris sitter the war. The first novel she wrote there was Love in a Cold Climate; her next, The Blessing, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in 1951. Now from aide reading and the liveliest observation she has drawn her gay, enchanting portrait of Madame de Pompadour, which is to be published by Random House hue this spring and from which the Atlantic has been privileged to draw the story of the King’s capture.

We are indebted to Evelyn Waugh for this thumbnail sketch of NANCY MITFORD, whose latest novel, The Blessing, was the Book-of-theMonth Club selection for November. “She is the first of the long line of daughters of Lord Redesdale . . . all beautiful and wildly individual. . . . Nancy received no education at all except in horsemanship and French. Liverish critics may sometimes detect traces of this defect in her work. But she wrote and read continually and has in the end achieved a way of writing so light and personal that it can almost be called a ‘style.’”With her husband, the Hon. Peter Rodd, the explorer, she now lives in the heart of Paris.