I recently read the first two volumes of Nancy Mitford’s postwar trilogy about the Radlett and Montdore families, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, and for several weeks, I exited 2025 and was transported into the world of two mid- to late-1940s English aristocratic families.

Shortly after I started reading, I researched the author and discovered, to my surprise, that she and her siblings were like the Kardashians of their era — except the Mitfords’ lives were even more eventful. 

For instance, one sister got married to the leader of the British Union of Fascists and later spent time in prison. Another was so in love with Hitler that she shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany. A third sister was a communist who immigrated to the U.S. and joined the American Communist Party. Yet another married the wealthy Duke of Devonshire. And author Nancy, the eldest, had slight socialist tendencies and lived in France, where she wrote her novels while having a long affair with a famous French politician.

The unconventional choices made by the sisters may have been influenced by their aristocratic, strong-minded father, David Freeman-Mitford, the 2nd Baron Redesdale. Uncle Matthew, narrator Fanny’s uncle in Nancy Mitford’s trilogy, was inspired by the real Lord Redesdale. They both disliked foreigners and both hunted their own kids — hopefully as a joke. In the novels, Uncle Matthew doesn’t believe in female education, as girls would get “legs like gateposts from playing hockey” in school. 

Several other idiosyncratic characters inhabit these books. The one who stood out most to me was Uncle Davey, who marries Fanny’s aunt Emily in the first volume. Shortly after he’s introduced to the reader, Uncle Davey refuses the shepherd’s pie offered during a meal because it contains “twice-cooked meat,” which, he informs everyone, “imposes a most fearful strain on the juices.” He later feels guilty for complaining and praises the bread. “I’m sure it has the germ,” he says. When asked to explain what he means, he launches into a passionate monologue:

“I was saying that I feel sure your delicious bread is made of stone-ground flour, containing a high proportion of the germ. In my bedroom at home I have a picture of a grain of wheat (magnified, naturally) which shows the germ. As you know, in white bread the germ, with its wonderful health-giving properties, is eliminated — extracted, I should say — and put into chicken food. As a result the human race is becoming enfeebled, while hens grow larger and stronger with every generation.”

I started The Pursuit of Love out of a desire to scratch a literary-romance itch. Mitford’s writing is witty, and her observations are sharp. However, I’m not sure her books can be called romantic. Yes, they’re about romances, but they certainly don’t have “happily ever after” endings. If anything, they are anti-romances. 

The first volume is about Fanny’s cousin Linda’s titular “pursuit of love.” She has a series of romances, some of which culminate in marriages. But these aren’t happy stories; there’s no satisfying ending. And while there’s nothing wrong with treating romance with a dose of cynicism, what didn’t work well was the book’s conclusion, which went against the tone and pace of everything that came before it. 

While Linda’s love story was anticlimactic, the “romance” in Love in a Cold Climate was a true shock. It’s between Fanny’s best friend, Polly, and Boy Dougdale, Polly’s uncle by marriage. Polly wants to marry Boy shortly after his wife (Polly’s aunt) dies. There are hints that Polly must have been, in today’s parlance, “groomed” by Boy when she was a child. In fact, we learn that Boy was called the Lecherous Lecturer by Fanny and her cousins since childhood because of the way he behaved around young girls. 

It’s illogical to judge fictional characters from the 1940s through today’s post-#MeToo lens, but it was hard for me to accept the way several characters in Love in a Cold Place deal with the news of Polly’s intention to marry Boy, as well as to stomach their perception of him. When Fanny reveals that Boy “went for little girls” and that he had done this to cousin Linda, too, Linda’s mother, Aunt Sadie, reacts: 

“Did he? I have sometimes wondered. Ugh! What a man! How you can think there’s anything to be said for him, Davey, and how can you pretend he hadn’t the faintest idea Polly was in love with him? If he made up to Linda, of course he must have done the same to her.”

This feels like the feeblest reaction upon learning that one’s daughter was likely molested as a child. And it gets worse.

Uncle Davey, whom I liked so much in the first book, replies, “Well, Linda’s not in love with him, is she? He can’t be expected to guess that because he strokes the hair of a little girl when she’s fourteen she’s going to insist on marrying him when she grows up. Bad luck on a chap, I call it.” 

In other words, he sympathizes with Boy. I wasn’t quite able to recover from the distaste I felt upon reading this. Not even the introduction of a wonderful, openly gay character, Cedric, could dispel my disappointment. 

Yet, I also remembered that our society’s attitude toward childhood sexual abuse has evolved to what it is now only relatively recently. For instance, America’s recent renewed obsession with the Menendez brothers is a reminder of how differently we see the same set of facts three decades apart. 

Still, I wondered why a writer of such fine ability as Nancy Mitford would choose to make her characters behave so flippantly. The answer is probably simple: Her art must’ve reflected the reality around her. The attitudes of Aunt Sadie and Uncle Davey were those of the people in her life. 

Thankfully, society’s attitude has evolved in the last 75 years and will, no doubt, continue to do so in the future.

Ananya Bhattacharyya is a Washington-based editor and writer. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Guardian, Lit Hub, Baltimore Sun, Al Jazeera America, Reuters, Vice, Washingtonian, and other publications.