Daughters and rebels : The autobiography of Jessica Mitford / Jessica Mitford.

Includes eight plates (between pages 147 and 148). Plates include illustrations of Mitford with her friends and family in addition to several with her husband, Esmond.

"Jessica Mitford has written a gay and touching account of her growing up from childhood through early marriage. She was the sixth child of a pair of splendid English eccentrics, Lord and Lady Redesdale, and sister, to Nancy, now infamous for her novels, Unity, who became notorious through her attachment to Hitler, Diana who married Sir Oswald Mosley and joined him in that strange anachronism, British fascism, and Deborah, the present Duchess of Devonshire. From the first, her definitely 'U' background was a source of infinite boredom to Jessica and her lively account of it explains not only her own rebellion, but much about her sisters'. It seemed quite natural to little Jessica, for example, that she should learn how to shoplift. Later it was just as natural for her to fall in love with a young man she had never met. His name was Esmond Romilly, he was a nephew of Winston Churchill, and he was a fighting for the Loyalists. Jessica pulled strings and things happened. She met him when he came home on leave. When he went back he was not alone. Not even the threat of the English version of the Mann Act or the arrival of her sister on a warship could tear Jessica away, and finally she and Esmond were married. After Spain they returned to London where they had an odd assortment of friends, a great deal of fun, and almost no money--a fairly permanent condition. The last third of the book is devoted to their adventures in America and it is a rollicking account of two 'blue-blooded babes in Hobohemia', a designation which infuriated 'babes' in question. We meet Esmond as a door-to-door stocking salesman (he took lessons), and as a bartender in Miami, as a guest badly in need of a shave and a dinner jacket but very well known to the butler. Finally the long shadow of war clouded the Florida sunshine and the Romilly's started north, Esmond headed for Canada to enlist in His Majesty's forces. He left Jessica in Washington to have her baby and it is there that the book ends. It was there, too, that World War II put an end to her childhood, for Esmond was killed in action fighting for a world he has so thoroughly enjoyed.Jessica Mitford's autobiography is a warm, funny and real. It proves that Nancy is not the only Mitford with the gift of wit and words" -- from the book jacket.