Don't Tell Alfred
by Nancy Mitford
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Book Summary Information
Author: Nancy MitfordEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1990-04
ISBN: 0881845973
Number of pages: 223
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
Book Reviews of Don't Tell Alfred
Book Review: For the love of Northey
Summary: 5 Stars
Nancy Mitford continues the lives and loves of the Radlett family and their various off-spring. In this Fanny, our narrator, first met in the impeccably charming novel "Pursuit of Love", is now in France of the 1950's with her teenage boys bordering on adulthood and jobs. Her husband, Alfred, has moved from the safe cloisters of Oxford into the dizzying world of international diplomacy and is Ambassador for France. Their first problem is getting rid of the old Ambassadress, Pauline, who, despite having been despatched from the embassy onto a train the week before, is discovered holding court to French society in a lesser used wing and shows little sign of budging.Into this all falls Northey, the daughter of Fanny's cousin, Louisa. Northey has been sent by Louisa to act as Fanny's social secretary, but proves herself singularly unsuited to the position being unable to speak French, and it seems pathologically disinclined to do a lick of work. She is in the way of the British upper-classes, immensely charming and so this is really mostly the story of Northey's pursuit of love. Perhaps not as satirically funny as Mitford's first book in the series but it is still an amusing and witty novel. Characters waltz in and out of scenes without any respect for the plot but with enormous charm and verve. You could still read this book without ever having read any of the others in the series but it would certainly make a lot more sense.
Summary of Don't Tell Alfred
This brilliantly funny novel revisits some of the characters from Nancy Mitford's earlier stories including Fanny, who is married to bumbling, absent-minded Oxford don, Alfred. Fanny is content in her role as a tweedy housewife with 'ghastly' clothes, but her life changes overnight when Alfred is appointed English Ambassador to Paris. Suddenly she is mixing with royalty and Rothschilds, hosting cocktail parties and having details of her every move and outfit printed in the papers. As if that wasn't all more than enough to contend with, she also finds herself dealing with an aristocratic squatter, organising her friends' love lives and keeping track of her maverick sons. All she needs now is a diplomatic crisis...British Books
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