Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love is a celebrated example of a roman à clef, a novel in which real people appear under fictional names. The eccentric Radlett family is a satirical but affectionate portrait of Mitford’s own notorious aristocratic family. As Mitford’s sister Jessica confirms in the foreword, “there we all were, larger than life, Mitfords renamed Radletts” (x). The novel’s patriarch, the xenophobic and explosive Uncle Matthew, is a direct caricature of their father, David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale. Lord Redesdale was known for his violent tempers, his hatred of foreigners, and his bizarre boast of having read only one book, Jack London’s White Fang. This parallels Uncle Matthew’s claim that “I have only read one book in my life, and that is White Fang. It’s so frightfully good I’ve never bothered to read another” (80).

The six Mitford sisters were famous for their glamour, wit, and radically divergent political loyalties, which spanned from Communism (Jessica) to Fascism (Diana and Unity). Diana married the leader of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley, while Unity was a friend and admirer of Adolf Hitler. This ideological fracture within a single family mirrors the political polarization that drives much of the novel’s plot, particularly through Linda’s contrasting marriages to a Tory with Nazi sympathies and later a Communist. Understanding this autobiographical foundation allows the reader to appreciate the novel’s layers of insider humor and historical commentary.

Following the immediate success of the novel, Mitford wrote two sequels entitled Love in a Cold Climate (1949) and Don’t Tell Alfred (1960). The second novel, which takes place simultaneous to The Pursuit of Love concerns the story of another relative named Polly Hampton, who, despite her social grooming and great beauty, chooses to pursue a relationship with her uncle, the promiscuous “Boy” Dougdale, who is married to Polly’s paternal aunt. The third novel, Mitford’s last, focuses on Fanny Logan’s relationship with her own husband, the Oxford don Alfred Wincham. Like the original novel, both sequels are narrated by Fanny and deploy Mitford’s sharp satirical eye toward the social conventions of her time and place.