Rare Books

"The Blessing" 1951 MITFORD, Nancy (SOLD)

MITFORD, Nancy

[305] pp.

Random House

1951

8 1/4" x 5 3/4"

Jacket design by Cecil Beaton

VG/ VG

With characteristically amusing malice, Mitford blends a comedy of manners with culture shock as Grace Allingham, a naive English rose, impulsively marries Charles-Edouard de Valhubert, a French nobleman with all his class's charm and decadence. Both are duped, however, by their son Sigismund -- the Blessing of the title -- a juvenile Machiavelli who mixes Gallic cunning with Saxon thoroughness to become one of Mitford's most memorable characters.