Hons and Rebels

By: Jessica Mitford

Narrated by: Jenny Agutter

Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

The Mitford family is one of the century's most enigmatic, made notorious by Nancy's novels, Diana's marriage to Sir Oswald Mosley, Unity's infatuation with Hitler, Debo's marriage to a duke and Jessica's passionate commitment to communism. Hons and Rebels is an enchanting and deeply absorbing memoir of an isolated and eccentric upbringing which conceals beneath its witty, lighthearted surface much wisdom and depth of feeling.

©1960 Jessica Mitford (P)2017 Orion Publishing Group

Critic reviews

"More than an extremely amusing autobiography she has evoked a whole generation. Her book is full of the music of time." ( Sunday Times)
"Stunning. Reads like extravagantly mannered fiction, except that it is all fabulously true Miss Mitford is at once touching and wildly funny, and there is not one of her highly coloured characters that is not violently alive and uncomfortably kicking." ( Tatler)
"The story of Jessica Mitford's struggles makes tumultous and rewarding reading, and I recommend it heartily." (Elizabeth Janeway, The New York Times)
"[Mitford] has a most unusual talent for recapturing the past. There is a feeling of immediacy, as if it were all being written on the spot, at the time, by the teen-ager it was happening to. It is a fascinating book." ( New York Herald Tribune)
"The admitted 'rich vein of lunacy' in the Mitford family apparently has done nothing to dim the brilliance of its members among whom Jessica must be included. Although there's a strong undercurrent of seriousness throughout the book, it's submerged under downright hilariousness, crackling brash humor and enchanting turns-of-the-phrase." ( San Francisco Chronicle)
"Jessica Mitford (the fifth of the Mitford daughters) has brought a whole generation back to life in her autobiography .She tells the whole story of her rebellion with engaging frankness and a spirited, often humorous, enthusiasm." (Richard McLaughlin, Springfield Republican)
"Jessica tells her tale with girlish gush, brilliantly preserved a generation after the events." ( Time)