Books

First edition. Publisher's red and grey speckled cloth, lettered in blue. The dedication copy, inscribed on the dedication leaf to Robert Byron "oh dear Robert please don't be cross about this will you? with love from Nancy 24 Nov : 1932" A very good copy with the rear joint mostly split, but holding, and spine faded. Frontispiece and twelve further Wauvian line drawings by Mark Ogilvie-Grant. Mitford's second novel, described by Harold Acton as 'frolicsome,' is dedicated to travel writer and 'Bright Young Thing' Robert Byron, who is represented in the book as a love interest, Lord Lewis "a keen Byzantinist and, like all such, extremely sensitive on the subject." Amid the frivolity of the novel, some of Mitford's most visited themes lie within; money, English stoicism, courage and marriage. At the time of writing Mitford was facing a spell of financial worries, "I shall never be in London again - unless I walk. My allowance (already nearly non existent) is being cut down to about half as far as I can make out. Apparently while I was sunbathing in the C�te d'Azur there was a crisis in the old country. It is all too drab for words," she wrote in a letter to Byron, dated September 1931. One of the key themes of the book is the best motivation for marriage, marrying for money which may be wretched, or marrying for love which may prove worse. "The mere fact of being in love with somebody is a very good reason for not marrying them, in my opinion," says Amabelle Fortescue, "It brings much more unhappiness than anything else. Look at Sally. Every time Walter leaves the house for an hour, she thinks he will be run over by a bus and on an occasion like this [Walter has failed to return home after a wild party] it's impossible to guess what she must be suffering.".

Christmas Pudding is a comic novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1932. It offers a humorous and satirical look at the British upper class.