My first encounter with Mitford the biographer was her last book: Frederick the Great. She threw herself into researching Louis XV’s famous mistress and the result is something between the froth of a novel and the impartiality of a biography. With seven novels already behind her, Mitford had a fine reputation but, intoxicated and in love with her new home in Paris, she was eager to write about something other than the romantic trials of the English. In 1954, Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford was released to indulgent – and no doubt frustrating for the author – praise from the critics. Once you’ve proven yourself as a novelist, what do you do next? Do you turn out novel after novel, perhaps improving, or perhaps churning out forgettable fodder? Or do you try something entirely different, striking out into the unknown and – to your readers – the unexpected? I know which sounds like more fun to me.
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