Hons and Rebels (New York Review Books Classics)

In Hons and Rebels Jessica Mitford tells about her upbringing, which, she dryly remarks, "was not exactly conventional.... Debo spent silent hours in...more

In Hons and Rebels Jessica Mitford tells about her upbringing, which, she dryly remarks, "was not exactly conventional.... Debo spent silent hours in the chicken house learning to do an exact imitation of the look of pained concentration that comes over a hen's face when it is laying an egg... Unity and I made up a complete language called Boudledidge, unintelligible to any but ourselves, in which we translated various dirty songs (for safe singing in front of the grown-ups)." But Mitford found this life as smothering as it was unusual, and here she also recounts her decisive rebellion against it in the company of her first husband Esmond Romilly, with whom she ran away to the Spanish Civil War and traveled to America, where she cut her teeth as a reporter.   less