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The Mitford family dates from the Norman era, when Sir John de Mitford held the Castle of Mitford in Northumberland.

"Bertie" Mitford, created Baron Redesdale in 1902 From the late 1960s her health deteriorated, and she endured several years of painful illness before her death in 1973. Her later years were bittersweet, the success of her biographical studies of Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire and King Louis XIV contrasting with the ultimate failure of her relationship with Palewski. She had intended this as a joke, but many took it seriously, and Mitford was considered an authority on manners and breeding. After the war Mitford settled in France and lived there until her death, maintaining contact with her many English friends through letters and regular visits.ĭuring the 1950s Mitford developed the concept of "U" (upper) and "non-U" language, whereby social origins and standing were identified by words used in everyday speech. During the Second World War she formed a liaison with a Free French officer, Gaston Palewski, who was the love of her life.

Mitford's marriage to Peter Rodd (1933) proved unsatisfactory to both, and they divorced in 1957 after a lengthy separation. Her two semi-autobiographical post-war novels, The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949), established her reputation. This early effort and the three that followed it created little stir. Educated privately, she had no training as a writer before publishing her first novel in 1931. David Freeman-Mitford, later 2nd Baron Redesdale. Mitford enjoyed a privileged childhood as the eldest daughter of the Hon. She also has a reputation as a writer of popular historical biographies. She wrote several novels about upper-class life in England and France, and is considered a sharp and often provocative wit.

The eldest of the Mitford sisters, she was regarded as one of the " bright young things" on the London social scene in the inter-war period. Nancy Freeman-Mitford CBE (28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973), known as Nancy Mitford, was an English novelist, biographer, and journalist. David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale (father)