A journalist paints a portrait of her legendary English aristocratic family in this memoir "full of downright hilariousness, crackling brash humor, and enchanting turns-of-the-phrase" (San Francisco Chronicle).

"Reads like extravagantly mannered fiction, except that it is all fabulously true... touching and wildly funny." -- Tatler

Jessica Mitford, the great muckraking journalist, was part of a legendary English aristocratic family. Her sisters included Nancy, doyenne of the 1920s London smart set and a noted novelist and biographer; Diana, wife to the English fascist chief Sir Oswald Mosley; Unity, who fell head over in heels in love with Hitler; and Deborah, later the Duchess of Devonshire. Jessica swung left and moved to America, where she took part in the civil rights movement and wrote her classic exposé of the undertaking business, The American Way of Death.

Hons and Rebels is the hugely entertaining tale of Mitford's upbringing, which was, as she dryly remarks, "not exactly conventional... Debo spent silent hours in the chicken house learning to do an exact imitation of the look of pained concentration that comes over a hen's face when it is laying an egg... Unity and I made up a complete language called Boudledidge, unintelligible to any but ourselves, in which we translated various dirty songs (for safe singing in front of the grown-ups)." But Mitford found her family's world as smothering as it was singular and, determined to escape it, she eloped with Esmond Romilly, Churchill's nephew, to go fight in the Spanish Civil War. The ensuing scandal, in which a British destroyer was dispatched to recover the two truants, inspires some of Mitford's funniest, and most pointed, pages.

A family portrait, a tale of youthful folly and high-spirited adventure, a study in social history, a love story, Hons and Rebels is a delightful contribution to the autobiographer's art.

• We started tracking this book on August 29, 2016.
• This book was $5.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 5 times in the past 3,397 days.
• The current price of this book is $9.99 last checked one day ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past 90 days.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $1.99.
• The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on April 22, 2025.
• This book has been $1.99 one time since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $9.99 last reached on April 24, 2025.
• This book has been $9.99 2 times since we started tracking it.
• This book is currently at its highest price since we started tracking it.

• Politics & Social SciencesPolitics & GovernmentIdeologies & DoctrinesCommunism & Socialism
• Biographies & MemoirsLeaders & Notable PeopleRich & Famous
• Biographies & MemoirsWomen

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 305 Pages
• File Size: 40 KB