Books, Ideas, People, Writers

‘New’ Nancy Mitford Biographies!

A visit to my local secondhand bookshop today paid off handsomely. I found 2 ‘new’ Nancy Mitford biographies for my collection.

Attentive readers might remember from an early post that Mitford’s biography of Frederick the Great was the first Versailles Century book that I read as a youngster.

Frederick the Great by Nancy Mitford.

That book then led me to her Madame de Pompadour and The Sun King, which were my introduction to the world of Versailles.

Madame de Pompadour and The Sun King by Nancy Mitford.

The books in the photo above are my personal copies. I’ve had them for decades. I once had a copy of Frederick the Great, too, but some years ago I donated it to the Pride Library at the University of Western Ontario. Actually, I’ve donated several hundred titles in various media to that fine institution. You can read about my donations here: http://www.uwo.ca/pridelib/site/Collections/Donor%20Collections1/David%20Gemeinhardt%20Collection.html

Back to my local bookstore. I could bankrupt myself there, so I allow myself to go inside only once a month with a strict $30 budget. That’s Canadian dollars. Browsing the European history shelves, I noticed a paperback copy of Frederick the Great on offer for $5.

Paperback edition of Frederick the Great by Nancy Mitford.

Slightly further along the shelf was an eye-catching delight with a kind of binding that we rarely see nowadays.

When did you last see binding like this?

“What’s this?” I thought to myself. Lo and behold!

sunkingspoine Unbeknownst to me, a 50th anniversary commemorative edition of The Sun King with a new foreword by historian Sir Roy Strong had been issued in 2011. As serendipity would have it, the price was $25. It was with a sense of glee that I handed over exactly $30 for my 2 ‘new’ Mitford biographies.