Don't Tell Alfred

Name: Don't Tell Alfred
Brand: Tantor Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Nancy Mitford
ISBN: 9781666149067

Author: Nancy Mitford

Series: Radlett and Montdore Trilogy #3

Narrator: Adjoa Andoh

Unabridged: 8 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/28/2021

Categories: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

In this delightful comedy, Fanny—the quietly observant narrator of Nancy Mitford's two most famous novels—finally takes center stage.

Fanny Wincham—last seen as a young woman in The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate—has lived contentedly for years as housewife to an absent-minded Oxford don, Alfred. But her life changes overnight when her beloved Alfred is appointed English Ambassador to Paris.

Soon she finds herself mixing with royalty and Rothschilds while battling her hysterical predecessor, Lady Leone, who refuses to leave the premises. When Fanny’s tender-hearted secretary begins filling the embassy with rescued animals and her teenage sons run away from Eton and show up with a rock star in tow, things get entirely out of hand. Gleefully sending up the antics of mid-century high society, Don’t Tell Alfred is classic Mitford.

About Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford, daughter of Lord and Lady Redesdale and the eldest of the six legendary Mitford sisters, was born in 1904 and educated at home on the family estate in Oxfordshire. She made her debut in London and soon became one of the bright young things of the 1920s, a close friend of Henry Green, Evelyn Waugh, John Betjeman, and their circle. A beauty and a wit, she began writing for magazines and writing novels while she was still in her twenties. In all, she wrote eight novels as well as biographies of Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, Louis XIV, and Frederick the Great. She died in 1973.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Emma Angeline on May 30, 2021

Undeniably lovely and pleasant. A comfort read for me. Not the most amazing thing ever written but some amusing escapism. Consider it ever so slightly higher brow pool side reading. More interesting when you realise you’ve maybe never read something written from the pov of a middle aged woman, it is......more

Goodreads review by Gabi on February 11, 2021

I was sad to find this disappointing - I can see why Mitford gave up writing novels after this. Paris in the 50s can't compensate for the plot or characters, who all seem artificial, because they behave in an artificial and thoroughly entitled way. It's possible that the previous books were like thi......more

Goodreads review by Sketchbook on May 31, 2018

Mitford has an acute sense of the absurd. Remember the thingie about U & Non-U words: Pardon? (Non) What? (U) that reveal class? Nancy started it all. This drollery about diplomacy, inspired by her living in Paris, spoons up like a creamy dessert as the UK ambassador's wife disses the bores & le beau m......more

Goodreads review by Nick on March 24, 2019

I've been trying to figure out why this book is so disappointing, compared to the first two novels featuring (some of) these characters and I've decided on the reason: Mitford sincerely loved the people she depicted in the first two novels. She loved the bright young things, she loved the inter-war g......more

Goodreads review by Doug on February 11, 2023

Unfortunately, unlike its two predecessors in the series, this was more fizzle than sizzle. Written 11 years after the others - and set in the late '50's rather than the '30's, it just had a completely different feeling. Also, centering on the rather staid (read: dull) narrator Fanny, rather than th......more