In the teeth of grim headlines about economic collapse and further austerities … Nancy Mitford’s characters, desperately happy and utterly conscienceless, inhabit that cloud land of eight-course dinners, enormous balls, countless servants, and nonstop weekends that the English country gentry hold sacred. See also: The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

When an elderly duke begins pursuing the disgraced Polly and a callow potential heir curries favor with her parents, nothing goes as expected, but in the end all find happiness in their own unconventional ways.” The apparently aloof and indifferent Polly has a long-held secret, however, one that leads to the shattering of her mother’s dreams and her own disinheritance. Having just come from India, where her father served as Viceroy, she claims to have hoped that society in a colder climate would be less obsessed with love affairs. But Polly, with her stunning good looks and impeccable connections, is bored by the monotony of her glittering debut season in London. Polly Hampton has long been prepared for the perfect marriage by her mother, the fearsome and ambitious Lady Montdore. “A sparkling romantic comedy that vividly evokes the lost glamour of aristocratic life in England between the wars. Together, the three books form a loose trilogy.Ī brief synopsis of Love in a Cold Climateįrom the 2010 Vintage books edition (2010): Frances “Fanny” Wincham is the narrator of both.įanny is the cousin and close friend of Linda, the protagonist of The Pursuit of Love, and a distant cousin of Polly, the main character of Love in a Cold Climate.įanny appears once again in Don’t Tell Alfred (1960), which focuses more on herself and her marriage. Though published a few years later, Love in a Cold Climate isn’t considered a sequel of The Pursuit of Love, due to its fairly concurrent time frame. The two novels established Mitford as a bestselling author, and both have both been reprinted and adapted for television multiple times, among others the miniseries Love in a Cold Climate(2001) and The Pursuit of Love(2021). It set the stage for Love in a Cold Climate, which proved to be equally successful. The Pursuit of Love was Mitford’s fifth novel but her first breakaway success, selling two hundred thousand copies within the first year. Not a sequel but a companion volume of sorts to its predecessor, like Mitford’s other novels, it satirized upper-class life in England. Love in a Cold Climate (1949) was the follow-up novel to The Pursuit of Love (1945) by British novelist, biographer, and journalist Nancy Mitford (1904 – 1973).

The pursuit of love in a cold climate