Michael Dirda
DECCA The Letters of Jessica Mitford Edited by Peter Y. Sussman Knopf. 744 pp. $35 Mitford? Now where have we heard that name before? Let me count the ways, or at least a few of them. Once upon a time, in England, Lord and Lady Redesdale had six daughters and one son. All the girls were good-looking but a little out of the ordinary, especially after they grew up. Nancy resided in Paris, lived "in sin" and wrote delicious comic novels, including The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. Deborah married very, very well, becoming the duchess of Devonshire and chatelaine of the great English country house Chatsworth. Unity, alas, got to be an intimate friend of Adolf Hitler, whom she just adored, and shot herself in the head on the day Britain declared war on Germany. The particularly beautiful Diana divorced her first husband to wed her lover, the infamous British fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley. Brother Tom was killed during World War II, and sister Pam somehow led a quiet, fairly conventional life, probably just to be different. ...-
