Nancy Freeman-Mitford CBE, known as Nancy Mitford, was an English novelist, biographer and journalist. One of the renowned Mitford sisters and one of the "Bright Young People" on the London social scene in the inter-war years, she is best remembered for her novels about upper-class life in England and France and for her sharp and often provocative wit. She also established a reputation for herself as a writer of popular historical biographies. Mitford enjoyed a privileged childhood as the eldest daughter of the Hon. David Freeman-Mitford, later 2nd Baron Redesdale. Educated privately, she had no training as a writer before publishing her first novel in 1931. This early effort and the three that followed it created little stir; it was her two semi-autobiographical postwar novels, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, that established her reputation. Mitford had been unhappily married since 1933 to Peter Rodd and formed a liaison during the Second World War with a Free French officer, Gaston Palewski, who became the love of her life, although the pair were never a formal couple. 

November 28th, 1904 in London  /  Died:   Jun 30th, 1973