Mitford, Nancy (1904-1973), was a British novelist and biographer best known for her witty and satirical novels about English upper-class society. These partly autobiographical novels included The Pursuit of Love (1945), Love in a Cold Climate (1949), The Blessing (1951), and Don’t Tell Alfred (1960).
Mitford contributed to and coedited Noblesse Oblige (1956), a famous collection of satirical essays on English snobbery. In it, she popularized the terms U (meaning upper class) and non-U (not upper class), in reference to social behavior and language.
As a young adult, Mitford lived in London, England, where she mixed with intellectuals of the 1920’s, such as the literary critic Maurice Bowra and the novelist Evelyn Waugh. Mitford’s early novels, Highland Fling (1931), Wigs on the Green (1935), and Pigeon Pie (1940), were light-hearted studies of English society in the 1920’s and 1930’s. She based many of her characters on friends and family members.
Mitford wrote several biographies, including Madame de Pompadour (1954), Voltaire in Love (1957), and The Sun King (1966), all about famous figures in French history. Collections of several years of correspondence with Evelyn Waugh were published in 1993 and 1996.
Nancy Freeman-Mitford was born on Nov. 28, 1904, in London. She was one of six daughters of Baron Redesdale, a British diplomat and nobleman. Her sister Jessica became a famous writer on American society. In 1972, Nancy received two high national honors, France’s Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur and the United Kingdom’s Commander of the British Empire. She died on June 30, 1973.
