Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford
MITFORD, Jessica. Hons and Rebels. London: Victor Gollancz, 1960.
First edition, first printing. Jessica "Decca" Mitford's classic memoir, with the scarce dust jacket. Jessica’s Hons and Rebels, together with the novels by her elder sister Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, are highly entertaining and vivid accounts of growing up in eccentric aristocratic families during the 1920s and 30s.
Hons and Rebels is a great examination of the British class system, life as a rebel aristocrat, and the divisive politics pervading the public and private lives of Britons and Europeans during the 1930s. Decca was a communist supporter, while her sisters Unity and Diana were ardent fascists. Aged 19, she eloped with her cousin Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill’s ‘red’ nephew, to war-torn Spain. The pair married and spent the years before the Second World War in the United States. All this is recounted in brilliant and entertaining detail.
222 pp, b/w frontis, 2 b/w plates. 8vo, original red cloth. A few scattered old stains to a few pages. Owner's name in pencil to front endpaper. Very good, in good dust jacket (chipped with slight loss at spine ends, corners and foot of front face; not price-clipped)