About this title: Fanny Logan narrates Nancy Mitford's autobiographical tale of young women in search of husbands. Set among the English aristocracy in the early 20th century, THE PURSUIT OF LOVE is a comical portrait of an extremely eccentric family, the Radletts, which is headed by Fanny's eternally grumpy (and probably insane) Uncle Matthew. The romantic adventures of beauteous Cousin Linda (based on Nancy herself) form the core of the story, which is a hilariously funny roman à clef and a classic of the literature of the period dominated by the "bright young things." Returning to the milieu of its ...
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Description: Good. 0394708172 Condition: GOOD. (Book may have one or a combination of the following characteristics: former library book, dust jacket missing, cover wear, name written inside cover, considerable underlining/highlighting, remainder mark, binding loose, binding slants, pages tanning / curling, etc. Overall, the book is in decent shape. This is a blanket description. Please email us if you require a specific, detailed description of the book condition. We will typically respond within one week ... read more
Edition: First edition. 1st Vintage PB.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1982
ISBN-13:9780394708171ISBN:0394708172
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Cover spider web wrinkled; the text pages show age-toning. This book needs a Home. Spine tight. Inside clean. 477 p. Cover drawing shows 2 couples at formal dance in ballroom. Audience: General/trade. First hardcovers published 1945 & 1949, respectively, to a delighted audience. Became a Mobil Masterpiece Theatre presentation. Set among the English country gentry; sly and witty (cover notes). Introduction by author explains autobiographical aspects. read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Cloth Hardcover
Publisher: Modern Library, New York
Date Published: 1994
ISBN-13:9780679600909ISBN:0679600906
Description: Good in Very Good jacket. 12mo-over 6"-8" Tall. Reprint edition cloth hard cover with dust jacket. Spine somewhat bowed. Prior owner's artwork and writing on endpapers, contents of the book unmarked. Dust jacket creased along spine, rubbed at corners offered in new mylar cover. Good reading copy. 617pp. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Modern Library
Date Published: 1994
ISBN-13:9780679600909ISBN:0679600906
Description: Good. A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (including dustcover, if applicable). The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "from the library of" labels. ******PLEASE NOTE****** Orders placed after Dec. 7 cannot be guaranteed delivery before Christmas unless you select EXPEDITED shipping! Thank you & Happy Holidays! read more
Description: Very Good. 0375718990 light shelf wear / edge wear cover / pages very good condition//"Buy with Confidence-Satisfaction Guaranteed! Customer Service Makes All the Difference. " read more
Description: Fine; Collectible. First Vintage Books Edition. Appears unread. No marks/underlines/highlights. Pages are clean and tight. Minor shelfwear. Free deliver confirmation. Satisfaction guaranteed! read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date Published: 2001-10-01
ISBN-13:9780375718991ISBN:0375718990
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780375718991. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780375718991ISBN:0375718990
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Description: Good. Only lightly used. Book has minimal wear to cover and binding. A few pages may have small creases and minimal underlining. Book selection as BIG as Texas. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780375718991ISBN:0375718990
Description: Good. Used Condition-GOOD can be a well cared for Book that is in great condition to a Book that may show some signs of wear. GOOD Books sometimes are permanently marked; have some spine or page creases; exibit signs of aging or an ExLibrary copy. ** Sometimes grease pencil or permanent marking on cover. May contain limited notes and or highlighting. 100% Satisfaction guaranteed on all purchases. ** SHIPS FROM USA-Domestic Delivery takes 5-14 days ** read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780375718991ISBN:0375718990
Description: Good. Nice copy with small tear on front cover, corners are bumped. No apparent marks throughout this book. No creasing to cover and spine. read more
"It's hard to go into these novels already knowing rather a lot about the Mitfords, and especially as a worshiper of all things Jessica. Nancy Mitford mined her family and friends for characters and plots--the novels contain quite a bit of autobiographical fictioneering. But, while there are a number of felicitous, funny moments (the child hunt; anything said by Jassy--the Jessica stand-in--or Victoria; Lady Montdore going once in the morning and not needing to be let out all day like a dog; Uncle Matthew shaking Cedric like a rat), one can't help feeling (um, knowing) that there's a more interesting story not being told, and wonder why Nancy chose to relate or to suppress what she did. After a brief lunchtime chat with Karl about psychoanalytic crit theory, I wonder why Nancy chose the pink champagney, fey view of these aristocratic families in Cold Climate, the country eccentric version of them in Pursuit of Love--and omitted all the things that disrupted the light, humorous mood of both--but then chose to narrate both stories from the pov of an outsider by wealth, education, and disposition (the shy, dowdy cousin Fanny, daughter of the disreputable Bolter), whose own story occurs only in fits and starts, interrupted and upstaged by the lives of the characters she narrates. Mitford practically invites you to wonder about the concealments, the lives not guessed at--to read her novels as facades. She makes you wonder what narrative, personal, or political aims can be served by such extremely elided accounts of her own family life--and why, if she chose to elide them, she wrote about her family in the first place, and why she made it *fiction*. Moreover, one has to consider that Nancy was only too aware that she was writing for an audience that already knew what she wasn't saying--not just the Bright Young Things and the people she'd danced or dined with, but anybody who could pick up a newspaper, because the intimate lives of her siblings had started appearing in the scandal sheets when she was in her twenties. She was a celebrity from a notorious celebrity family. So, when she combined the antics of her sisters Diana, Jessica, and Deborah (notably, the other three writers of the family!!!) with her own, to make the character of Linda, what was she trying to tell us about family, representation, truth, public knowledge, and fiction? I don't know! While I didn't love these novels, and they're not the kind of thing I'd want to read by anybody else, the cleverness and the secrecy do stick and will make me think for a long time."
"Family novel based somewhat on the authors family and friends. A nice look at the 1920s - 1940s in England and Europe. The writing points up how informal our writing and speech is today! Yet, the personal interactions still ring true. People haven't really changed that much over the decades."
"Every bit as funny, effortlessly cultured and filled with insights about politics and social class as you might imagine (presuming you've heard of Nancy Mitford). The Pursuit of Love, from 1945, shows her keen awareness of the U/non-U linguistic distinction well before she elaborated it in her famous 1954 Encounter article, "The English Aristocracy". The irascible country squire character (molded on her father) is scolding his sister about the "dreadful" middle-class education the teenage narrator is receiving; "(she) talks about mirrors and mantelpieces, handbags and perfume" (the aristocratic equivalents for the first and last are "looking glass" and "scent" - not even sure about the rest). Other intriguing detail includes casual mentions of the books on an upper-class girl's shelf - George Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody, Round the World in Forty Days, King Solomon's Mines and so on. The number of quotable passages is half the length of the book - one I liked: "The worst of being a Communist is the parties you may go to are - well - awfully funny and touching but not very gay...I don't see the point of sad parties, do you? And Left-wing people are always sad because they mind dreadfully about their causes, and the causes are always going so badly.""
"One of the funniest (and cattyist) books I've read and a great bookend to the Lord Berners books on childhood. Lord Berners appears as a character in Mitford's novels."
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