Nancy Mitford

An important archive of correspondence and editorial notes by Nancy Mitford to Kay Gaudin, her secretary, typist and research assistant, relating chiefly to the preparation of Louis XIV and Frederick the Great, 1961–1971. 

• Nancy Mitford (English).
• Comprising 27 autograph letters signed, “Nancy Mitford,” “Nancy Rodd,” “Nancy” and “N,” 13 autograph postcards signed, and 1 autograph card signed, with envelopes, written from Paris, Versailles and elsewhere between 24 August 1961 and 20 October 1971.
• Also includes 2 typed letters from Kay Gaudin, a small group of related newspaper cuttings, and a first edition signed copy of Charlotte Mosley’s Love from Nancy, in dust wrapper, for which the archive was used as source material.

A remarkable and highly revealing archive, tracing Mitford’s relationship with Gaudin from professional typist to trusted friend and literary assistant. The letters center on the typing, revision and publication of Mitford’s historical works, particularly Frederick the Great, and include editorial instructions, historical corrections and references to Fredersdorf, Winterfeldt and other figures from Frederick’s circle. Of particular interest are a series of editorial memoranda for Frederick the Great, preserving Mitford’s revisions and historical corrections in her own hand, and offering direct evidence of her working methods.

The correspondence also contains vivid autobiographical material from the final decade of Mitford’s life. She writes with characteristic humor of daily life in Versailles, literary engagements, domestic mishaps, travel, publishers, reviews, television appearances, family, health and illness. In one typically comic domestic aside she notes: “A plastic bag full of cow manure is drying on the bathroom radiator, for my pot plants.” Later letters record, with striking candor, the illness that would dominate her last years: “I’m to see the surgeon next Thurs: I only wish it could have been sooner & then I shall know when & where the chopping is to take place,” and, after surgery, “they have sawn me in ½ but I never felt much & the agony of my back went at once.”

Other letters refer to her sister Pamela, faith healers, the practicalities of publication, and the everyday movement between Versailles and London. The archive is rich in wit, affection and personality, while also documenting the composition of Mitford’s final major historical biography.

An unusually desirable literary archive, combining unpublished autobiographical material, important editorial evidence, and a warm record of one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated writers in the closing years of her life and career.