Part of a newly designed Nancy Mitford series.

In The Blessing Nancy Mitford, author of Love in a Cold Climate, pens a wickedly funny and sharply observant tale of aristocratic, post-war France, fashion and fidelity.

‘We’ve had nothing to eat since you saw us, nothing whatsoever. Course upon course of nasty greasy stuff smelling of garlic – a month’s ration of meat , yes, but quite raw you know – shame, really – I wasn’t going to touch it, let alone give it to Sigi, poor little mite.’

‘Nanny says the cheese was matured in manure,’ Sigi chipped in, eyes like saucers.

It isn’t just Nanny who finds it difficult in France when Grace, along with her young son Sigi, is finally able to join her dashing aristocratic husband Charles- Edouard after the war. For Grace is out of her depth among the fashionably dressed and immaculately coiffured French women, and shocked by their relentless gossiping and bedhopping. When she discovers her husband’s tendency to lust after every pretty girl he sees, it looks like trouble. And things get even more complicated when little Sigi steps in. . .

The Blessing is a hilarious tale of love, fidelity and the English abroad, tailored as brilliantly as one of Dior’s ‘New Look’ suits.

‘Deliciously funny’ Evelyn Waugh

Nancy Mitford was the eldest of the infamous Mitford sisters, known for her membership in ‘The Bright Young Things’ clique of the 1920s and an intimate of Evelyn Waugh; she produced witty, satirical novels with a cast of characters taken directly from the aristocratic social scene of which she was a part. Her novels, The Pursuit of Love, Wigs on the Green, Love in a Cold Climate, The Blessing and Don’t Tell Alfred, are available in single paperback editions from Penguin or as part of The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford which also includes Highland Fling, Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie. This edition of The Blessing is introduced by singer and guitarist of the band Franz Ferdinand, Alex Kapranos.

Admirable, deliciously funny, consistent and complete'—Evelyn Waugh