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. An entrancing account of growing up in an eccentric aristocratic family in an isolated country home in the Cotswolds during the 1920s and 30s. Jessica’s Hons and Rebels, and the novel by her elder sister Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love (1945), depicted the family life of the Mitfords as a series of comic but unnerving episodes, dominated by their father's frequent fits of rage and irrational prejudices, and his children strong desire to escape their parental home.
This book 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, slight spotting to top edge. Very good, in good dust jacket (slightly worn with neat clear tape to spine ends and corners; not price-clipped)