Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford (September 11, 1917 – July 22, 1996) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
,
journalistA journalist is a person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for viewpoints that are not biased.Reporters are one type of journalist...
and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters.
Early life
Mitford, the sixth of seven children, was the daughter of
David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron RedesdaleDavid Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, , was an English landowner and was the father of the Mitford sisters, in whose various novels and memoirs he is depicted.-Ancestry:...
and his wife Sydney (daughter of politician and publisher Thomas Bowles), and grew up in a series of her father's country houses. She had little formal education, since her mother did not believe in sending girls to school, but was nevertheless widely read. Though her sisters
UnityUnity Valkyrie Mitford , was one of the noted Mitford sisters. She was a prominent supporter of fascism and friend of Adolf Hitler.- Childhood :...
and
DianaDiana Mitford, Lady Mosley , was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley , leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the home of Joseph Goebbels,...
were well-known British supporters of
HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
and her father was described as being "one of nature's
fascistsFascism, , comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology developed in Italy. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in...
," Jessica (always known as "Decca") renounced her privileged background at an early age and became an adherent of
communismCommunism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human...
. She was known as the "
red sheepBlack sheep is an English language idiom which describes an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within one's family. The term has typically been given negative implications, implying waywardness...
" of the family.
Life with Esmond Romilly
At age 19, Mitford met her second cousin
Esmond RomillyEsmond Marcus David Romilly was a British socialist and anti-fascist, now remembered mainly for his marriage to Jessica Mitford, one of the Mitford sisters...
, the nephew (by marriage) of
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
, who was recuperating from
dysenteryDysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the feces. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal....
caught during a stint with the
International BrigadesThe International Brigades were Republican military units made up of many non-state-sponsored, anti-fascist, mostly socialist and communist, volunteers from different countries who traveled to Spain to fight for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939.An estimated 32,000 people...
defending
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
during the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
. The
cousins fell in loveA cousin couple is a pair of cousins who are involved in a romantic or sexual relationship. In some jurisdictions and cultures, such marriages are legal, accepted, or even actively encouraged, while in others cousin-cousin relationships are regarded as incest and marriages are prohibited...
immediately and decided to elope to
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
, where Romilly picked up work as a reporter for the
News ChronicleThe News Chronicle was a British daily newspaper. It ceased publication in 1960, being absorbed into the Daily Mail.-Daily Chronicle:...
covering the conflict. After some legal difficulties caused by their relatives' opposition, they married. They moved to
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
and lived in the
East EndThe East End of London, known vernacularly as the East End, is the area of London, England, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames, although it is not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries...
, then mostly an industrial slum area. Attended by doctor and nurse, Mitford
gave birth at homeA Home birth is a birth that is planned to occur at home. It is contrasted to birth that occur in a hospital or a birth centre.-Types of home births:Homebirths are divided into two types — attended and unattended births....
to a daughter, Julia Decca Romilly, on 20 December 1937 (her American births were in a hospital and were less pleasant, she stated). The baby died in a
measlesMeasles is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
epidemic the following May. Mitford rarely spoke of Julia in later life.
In 1939, Romilly and Mitford emigrated to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. They traveled around, working odd jobs, perpetually short of cash. At the outset of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Romilly enlisted in the
Royal Canadian Air ForceThe Royal Canadian Air Force was the air force of Canada from 1924 until 1968 when the three branches of the Canadian military were merged into the Canadian Forces...
; Mitford was living in Washington D.C. and considered joining him once he was posted to England. She gave birth to another daughter, Constancia ("the Donk" or "Dinky") Romilly on 9 February 1941. Her husband went
missing in actionMissing in action is a status assigned to armed services personnel who are reported missing during active service. They may have been killed, wounded, become a prisoner of war, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave can be positively identified...
on 30 November 1941, on his way back from a bombing raid over
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
. She took months to accept that he was dead.
Life with Robert Treuhaft
Mitford threw herself into war work. Through this, she met and married the American
civil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights and freedoms that protect individuals from unwarranted government action and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression....
lawyer
Robert TreuhaftRobert Edward Treuhaft was an American lawyer and the second husband of Jessica Mitford.The son of Hungarian immigrants, he worked for labor union and radical left causes much of his life...
in 1943 and eventually settled in
Oakland, CaliforniaOakland is the eighth-largest city in the U.S. state of California and a major West Coast port city, located on San Francisco Bay about eight miles east of the City of San Francisco. Oakland is a major hub city for the Bay Area subregion collectively called the East Bay, and it is the county seat...
. There the couple had two sons: Nicholas born 1944 (who was killed in 1955 when hit by a bus), and Benjamin, born 1947. Mitford approached her motherhood in a spirit of "benign neglect", described by her children as "matter-of-fact" and "not touchy-feely". She became closer to her own mother by letter over the decades.
Communism and left-wing politics
Mitford spent much of the early 1950s working as executive secretary of the local
Civil Rights CongressThe Civil Rights Congress was a civil rights organization formed in 1946 by a merger of the International Labor Defense and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. In 1951, it presented a denunciation of lynching in the United States, titled We Charge Genocide, to the United Nations....
chapter. Through this and her husband's legal practice, she was involved in a number of civil rights campaigns, notably the failed attempt to stop the execution of
Willie McGeeWillie McGee was an African-American from Laurel, Mississippi, who was sentenced to death in 1945 for raping a white housewife. In a time of intense racism in the United States, especially in The South, the outcome of McGee's first trial in December 1945 was effectively pre-ordained...
, an African-American accused of raping a white woman. Mitford and Treuhaft became active members of the
Communist PartyThe Communist Party of the United States of America is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States.During the first half of the 20th century it was the largest and most widely influential communist party in the country, and played a prominent role in the U.S...
. In 1953, at the height of
McCarthyismMcCarthyism is the politically motivated practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence...
and the '
Red ScareIn US history, the term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong anti-communism: the First Red Scare, from 1917 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The Scares were characterized by the fear that communism would upset the capitalist social order in the United States; the...
', they were summoned to testify in front of the
House Un-American Activities CommitteeThe House Committee on Un-American Activities was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
. Both refused to testify about their participation in radical groups.
In 1956, Mitford published (stenciled) a pamphlet, "Lifeitselfmanship or How to Become a Precisely-Because Man". In response to
Noblesse ObligeNoblesse Oblige: An Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy is a 1956 book by Nancy Mitford, illustrated by Osbert Lancaster and published by Hamish Hamilton. It was repeatedly reprinted. The book helped popularise the 'U', or upper-class, and 'non-U' classification...
, the book her sister
NancyNancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the "Bright Young Things" on the London social scene in the inter-war years...
co-wrote and edited on the class distinctions in
British EnglishBritish English, or UK English or English English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
, popularizing the phrases "
U and non-U EnglishU and non-U English usage, with U standing for upper class, and non-U representing the aspiring middle classes, were part of the terminology of popular discourse of social dialects in 1950s Britain and the northeast United States...
" (upper class and non-upper class), Jessica described L and non-L (Left and non-Left) English, mocking the clichés used by her comrades in the all-out
class struggleClass struggle is the active expression of class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, leading ideologists of communism, wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle".Marx's notion of class has...
. (The title alludes to
Stephen PotterStephen Potter was a British author best known for his mocking self-help books, and film and television derivatives from them, though he wrote much more widely, including scholarly books on English literature, and worked producing and writing for the BBC.-Foundations of his literary career:Potter...
's satirical series of books that included
Lifemanship.)
Feeling that in the current political climate they could do more for
social justiceSocial justice is a notion used to describe a society with a greater degree of economic egalitarianism through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution, policies aimed toward achieving that which developmental economists refer to as equality of opportunity and...
outside the Party, and disillusioned by the development of Communism in the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, Mitford and Treuhaft resigned from it in late 1958. Evidently she had to become a United States citizen or she would have been unceremoniously deported, regardless of her husband's citizenship.
In 1960 Mitford published her first book
Hons and RebelsHons and Rebels is an autobiography by political activist Jessica Mitford which describes her aristocratic childhood and the conflicts between her and her sisters Unity and Diana, who were ardent supporters of Nazism...
(American title:
Daughters and Rebels), a memoir covering her youth in the Redesdale household.
Investigative journalism
In May 1961 she traveled to
Montgomery, AlabamaMontgomery is the capital, second most populous city, and the fourth most populous metropolitan area in the Southern U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. The city population was 201,568...
while working on an article about
SouthernThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
attitudes for
EsquireEsquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
. While there, she and a friend went to meet the arrival of the Freedom Riders and became caught up in a riot when a mob led by the
Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan , informally known as The Klan, is the name of several past and present hate group organizations in the United States whose avowed purpose was to protect the rights of and further the interests of white Americans by violence and intimidation. The first such organizations originated in...
attacked the
civil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights and freedoms that protect individuals from unwarranted government action and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression....
activists. After the riot, Mitford proceeded to a rally led by
Martin Luther King, Jr.Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African-American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States and he is frequently referenced as a human rights icon today. King is recognized as a martyr...
The church at which this was held was also attacked by the Klan, and Mitford and the group spent the night barricaded inside until the violence was ended by the
National GuardThe National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States...
.
Through his work with unions and death benefits, Treuhaft became interested in the
funeralA funeral is a ceremony marking a person's death. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from the funeral itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour. These customs vary widely between cultures, and...
industry and persuaded Mitford to write an investigative article on the subject. Though the article, "
Saint PeterSimon Peter , Pétros “Rock”, Kephas in Hellenized Aramaic) was a leader of the early Christian Church, who features prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Peter was the son of John, and was from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee...
Don't You Call Me" published in
Frontier magazine, was not widely disseminated, it caught considerable attention when Mitford appeared on a local television broadcast with two industry representatives. Convinced of public interest, she wrote
The American Way of DeathThe American Way of Death was an exposé of abuses in the funeral home industry in the United States, written by Jessica Mitford and published in 1963...
, which was published in 1963. In the book Mitford harshly criticized the industry for using unscrupulous business practices to take advantage of grieving families. The book became a major bestseller and led to Congressional hearings on the funeral industry. The book was one of the inspirations for filmmaker
Tony RichardsonCecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
's 1965 film
The Loved OneThe Loved One is a 1965 film about the funeral business in Los Angeles, which is based on The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy , a short satirical novel by Evelyn Waugh...
, which was based on
Evelyn WaughArthur Evelyn St. John Waugh was an English writer, best known for such darkly humorous and satirical novels as Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Scoop, A Handful of Dust, and The Loved One, as well as for serious works, such as Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy that clearly...
's short satirical 1948
novel of the same nameThe Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy is a short satirical novel by Evelyn Waugh about the funeral business in Los Angeles, the British expatriate community in Hollywood, and the film industry.-Plot summary:...
, tellingly subtitled "An Anglo-American Tragedy".
After
The American Way of Death Mitford continued with her
investigative journalismInvestigative journalism is a type of reporting in which reporters deeply investigate a topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or some other scandal....
. In 1970, she published an article in the
Atlantic Monthly "Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers", an exposé of the
Famous Writers SchoolThe Famous Writers School was an educational institution that ran a correspondence course for writers in the 1960s and 1970s. Founded in 1961 by Bennett Cerf, Gordon Carroll and Albert Dorne, it became the subject of a small scandal after a 1970 exposé by Jessica Mitford, who noted the school's...
, a correspondence course of questionable business practices founded by
Bennett CerfBennett Alfred Cerf was a publisher and co-founder of Random House, also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?.-Biography:Bennett Cerf was born...
. She published
The Trial of Dr. SpockBenjamin McLane Spock was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time...
, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Michael Ferber, Mitchel Goodman, and Marcus RaskinMarcus Raskin is a prominent American social critic, political activist, author, and philosopher, working for progressive social change in the United States....
, an account of the five men's 1970 trial on charges of conspiracy to violate the
draft lawsConscription is a general term for involuntary labor demanded by an established authority. It is most often used in the specific sense of requiring citizens to serve in the armed forces...
, followed by a harsh critique of the American prison system entitled
Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business (1973), an allusion to the phrase "
cruel and unusual punishmentCruel and unusual punishment is a statement implying that governments shall not inflict suffering or humiliation on the condemned as punishment for crimes, regardless of their degree of severity...
".
Mitford was a distinguished professor for the fall semester 1973 at
San Jose State UniversitySan José State University is a public university located in San José, California, United States. It is the founding campus of the California State University system...
where she taught a course called "The American Way", which analyzed how the
WatergateThe Watergate scandal was a political scandal in the United States in the 1970s. Named for the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., effects of the scandal ultimately led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, President of the United States, on August 9, 1974...
gang cut their teeth in the earlier witch-hunt against the left in the McCarthy era. Due to disagreements with the dean over her taking a
loyalty oathA loyalty oath is an oath of loyalty to an organization, institution, or state of which an individual is a member.In this context, a loyalty oath is not a pledge or oath of allegiance...
and submitting to fingerprinting, the campus was thrown into protests and she was forced to go to court to remain able to teach.
Later life
Mitford's second memoir,
A Fine Old Conflict (1977), comically describes her experiences joining and eventually leaving the Communist Party USA. Mitford titled the book after what, in her youth, she thought were the lyrics to the Communist anthem, "
The InternationaleThe Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem and one of the most widely recognized songs in the world....
", which actually are "Tis the
final conflict". Mitford recounts how she was invited to join the Communist Party by her co-worker Dobby, to whom she responded "We thought you'd never ask!" She bristled against the conservative structure in the CP, at one point upsetting the women's caucus by printing a poster with "Girls! Girls! Girls!" to draw people to an event. She mercilessly teased an elder Communist about his paranoia when he wrote out the name of a town where she could get chickens donated from "loyal party members" for a fund raiser. When he wrote Petaluma on a scrap of paper to avoid being overheard by possible bugs, she asked in jest how the chickens should be prepared, and wrote, "Fried or broiled".
In addition to writing and activism, Mitford tried her hand at music as singer for "Decca and the Dectones," a cowbell and
kazooThe kazoo is a wind instrument with a "buzzing" timbral quality to a player's voice when one vocalizes into it. The kazoo is a type of mirliton—a device which modifies the sound of a person's voice by way of a vibrating membrane.-Playing:...
orchestra. She performed at numerous benefits and opened for
Cyndi LauperCynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She achieved success in the mid-1980s with the release of the album She's So Unusual and became the first artist to have four top-five singles released from one album. Lauper has released 11 albums and over 40...
on the roof of the
Virgin RecordsVirgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. It was later sold to Thorn EMI, and then, in the US, merged with Capitol Records in 2007 to create the Capitol Music Group....
store in San Francisco. She recorded two short albums: one contains her rendition of "
Maxwell's Silver Hammer"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is a song by The Beatles, from the Abbey Road album, with Paul McCartney singing lead. It was written by McCartney, though the songwriting credit is Lennon/McCartney.-Structure:...
" and "
Grace DarlingGrace Horsley Darling was an English Victorian heroine on the strength of a celebrated maritime rescue in 1838....
," and the other, two duets with friend and poet
Maya AngelouMaya Angelou is an American autobiographer and poet. Having been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton, she is best known for her series of six autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adulthood experiences...
.
Her last work was an update entitled
The American way of Death Revisited.
Mitford died of
lung cancerLung cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. This growth may lead to metastasis, which is the invasion of adjacent tissue and infiltration beyond the lungs. The vast majority of primary lung cancers are carcinomas of the lung, derived from epithelial cells...
at age 78. Her widower survived her by five years. Their surviving daughter had continued the activist tradition by working for the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating CommitteeThe Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
. She had two children with
James FormanJames Forman was an American Civil Rights leader active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panther Party, and the International Black Workers Congress...
, its African American director, and eventually became an emergency room nurse. Mitford's surviving son, Benjamin, was estranged from his family for some time and developed
bipolar disorderBipolar disorder, also known as manic depressive disorder, manic depression or bipolar affective disorder, is a serious mental disorder that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated mood clinically referred to as mania or, if...
(manic depression), but later became a piano tuner and uses his skills to ship pianos to
CubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean. It consists of the island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city. Cuba is home to over 11 million people and is...
with the slogan, "Send a piana to Havana."
Legacy and influence
J. K. RowlingJoanne "Jo" Murray, OBE , better known under the pen name J. K. Rowling , is a British author best known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived whilst on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990...
, author of the
Harry PotterHarry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter, together with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, his friends from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
series, reviewed Mitford's book of letters,
Decca, in the
Sunday TelegraphThe Sunday Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in 1961. It is the sister paper of The Daily Telegraph, but is run separately, with a different editorial staff....
in 2006.
Rowling stated in 2002, "My most influential writer, without a doubt, is Jessica Mitford. When my great-aunt gave me
Hons and RebelsHons and Rebels is an autobiography by political activist Jessica Mitford which describes her aristocratic childhood and the conflicts between her and her sisters Unity and Diana, who were ardent supporters of Nazism...
when I was 14, she instantly became my heroine. She ran away from home to fight in the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
, taking with her a camera that she had charged to her father's account. I wished I'd had the nerve to do something like that. I love the way she never outgrew some of her adolescent traits, remaining true to her politics – she was a self-taught socialist – throughout her life. I think I've read everything she wrote. I even called my daughter [Jessica Rowling Arantes] after her."
Quotations
- "You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty."
- "Objectivity? I've always had an objective."
- (at a museum exhibit on Egyptian embalming) "Now there is a society where the funeral industry got completely out of control."
- When Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh was an English writer, best known for such darkly humorous and satirical novels as Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Scoop, A Handful of Dust, and The Loved One, as well as for serious works, such as Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy that clearly...
wrote in a review of The American Way of Death that Mitford did not have "a plainly stated attitude to death," Mitford asked her sister DeborahDeborah Vivien Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire DCVO , née The Hon. Deborah Freeman-Mitford and known to her family as "Debo", is the youngest and last surviving of the six noted Mitford sisters whose political affiliations and marriages were a prominent feature of English culture in the...
to tell Waugh, "Of course I'm against it."
Dramatization
- Extracts from Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford were dramatized for Book of the Week, BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967.-Outline:...
, five 15-minute programmes broadcast in November 2006. The readers were Rosamund PikeRosamund Pike is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her portrayals of Bond villainess Miranda Frost in Die Another Day and Jane Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.-Early life:...
and Tom ChadbonTom Chadbon is a English actor, who has spent the larger part of his career appearing on British television. While principally a character actor, he has occasionally had leading or recurring roles....
; the producer was Chris Wallis.
External links