Weekend Deviation – Nancy Mitford’s Wigs on the Green

In past months I’ve given quite a lot of plugs to Penguin Classics – quite right as they produce excellent books but to avoid charges of favouritism or accusations of being unfair in ignoring others reissuing classics I’ll note a recent republication from Vintage Classics.

Nancy Mitford’s Wigs on the Green is in many ways an example of her extremely witty observational novels of manners of the English upper classes between the wars. As a Mitford sister how could she not know the ins and outs of this crowd intimately! But Wigs on the Green was slightly different – it deals in part with the rise of Hitler and an absurd movement of British fascists and their leader General Jack. That Nancy’s sister Unity was obsessed with Hitler and another of her sister’s Diana married to Oswald Mosley obviously gives the book a bit of a kick. To avoid family fights the book was rarely reissued. It’s great to see it back as a satire on Mosley and his cronies as well as a great comic novel.

And a truly beautiful picture of Nancy Mitford on the cover too…though the original cover is also a work of art – see below both covers and the official blurb as ever:

Nancy Mitford’s most controversial novel, unavailable for decades, is a hilarious satirical send-up of the political enthusiasms of her notorious sisters, Unity and Diana.

Written in 1934, early in Hitler’s rise, Wigs on the Green lightheartedly skewers the devoted followers of British fascism. The sheltered and unworldy Eugenia Malmain is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of General Jack and his Union Jackshirts. World-weary Noel Foster and his scheming friend Jasper Aspect are in search of wealthy heiresses to marry; Lady Marjorie, disguised as a commoner, is on the run from the Duke she has just jilted at the altar; and her friend Poppy is considering whether to divorce her rich husband. When these characters converge with the colorful locals at a grandly misconceived costume pageant that turns into a brawl between Pacifists and Jackshirts, madcap farce ensues. Long suppressed by the author out of sensitivity to family feelings, Wigs on the Green can now be enjoyed by fans of Mitford’s superbly comic novels.