Muv - by Rachel Trethewey (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The story of the "seventh Mitford woman," a long-overlooked figure in the Mitford canon--told in full for the first time.

Everyone knows about the six flamboyant Mitford girls but in fact there were seven remarkable women in the famous family--the seventh was "Muv," Lady Sydney Redesdale, the mother of the notorious sisters. Too often portrayed as different from them and outside the girl gang, she was really the original and much of her daughters' strong will, self-confidence, and extremism came from her.

Sydney Redesdale was a divisive figure both among her daughters and subsequent biographers. Until their deaths, her girls were still squabbling over what she was really like, their differing views of her persisted for even longer than the political divides between them. Each daughter wanted to control the narrative and they wrote competing novels, memoirs and letters to vindicate their perspective. For Nancy and Jessica, she was a scapegoat. For Unity, Diana, Debo and Pam, she was a saint.

Biographers have been equally divided about how she should be portrayed. Many wondered how such exceptional children could spring from such ordinary parents, but was Sydney really so "ordinary?" The story of her life at the heart of one of Britain's most famous families is told in full here for the first time and is a missing piece in understanding one of the twentieth century's most complex and fascinating families.

Review Quotes

"Her six daughters--Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah--became known in the English press as 'the Mitford girls.' In the 1930s and '40s, nearly all of them acquired celebrity, and some notoriety, for their writing, politics, love affairs or all three. Sydney herself has not been center stage. The historian Rachel Trethewey corrects that in a lively biography, Muv, which takes its title from the nickname Sydney's children bestowed on her."--The Wall Street Journal

"Trethewey succeeds in adding illuminating background to the plethora of existing books dedicated to detailing the antics of the controversial, quirky siblings. Trethewey works from a wealth of material [and] is admirably adept at piecing the story together. The author writes sympathetically of Muv's heartfelt efforts to help her estranged daughters [and] maintains both distance and compassion." --The New York Times Book Review

"Trethewey explores the life of Lady Sydney Redesdale, mother of the infamous Mitford sisters. Trethewey uses letters, memoirs and Nancy Mitford's semiautobiographical novels as sources and provides context related to the position of the Mitfords within English aristocratic society. An engaging look at the changing English aristocracy before and after WWII."--Booklist

"A gripping life of a troubled, troubling, and unjustly neglected woman."--Professor Richard Toye, Professor of History at Exeter University

"For the first time, the matriarch of the Mitfords emerges as an exciting historical figure in her own right, who was as brilliant and maddening as her six daughters. A treat for Mitford aficionados, this book offers a wealth of new information, re-framing and refreshing the story of the Mitfords as never before. Rachel Trethewey has set a new standard in the Mitford world - a truly dazzling book." --Lyndsy Spence, author of The Mitford Girls' Guide to Life and Mrs. Guinness

"Rachel Trethewey has done the seemingly impossible in a book about the Mitfords: she has found something original to say, thanks to her excellent scholarship, and has written Muv's story exceptionally well. Those who think they know all there is to know about the family will find her work a revelation." --Simon Heffer, author of Sing As We Go: Britain Between the Warsaw

"Rachel Trethewey's Mothers of the Mind is an engrossing and magnificently rewarding study of the relationships between three literary women - Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie and Sylvia Plath - and their mothers. In Muv, Trethewey looks with equally clear eyes at the tremendous influence exerted on the celebrated Mitford sisters by their strong-willed and alarmingly fervent mother, Sydney Redesdale. Fascinating stuff from one of our most innovative biographers." --Miranda Seymour, author of I Used to Live Here Once and In Byron's Wake

"Trethewey offers a well-researched life of the mother of the six famous Mitford sisters, Sydney Redesdale. Drawing on family papers, biographies, and interviews with some of Sydney's descendants, she reveals a stubborn woman. A sympathetic biography of a complex woman." --Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Rachel Trethewey

"Trethewey has been able to shed invaluable new light on the tangled and occasionally fraught relationships that Churchill's three adult daughters each had with Winston, their mother Clementine, their brother Randolph, and each other. She has rightly produced a fine, uplifting work."-- "Andrew Roberts, bestselling author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny"

"Winston Churchill's story has been told many times, but this fascinating book brings the lives of his daughters out of the shadows for the first time. There is sadness and tragedy, but in the end it's the extraordinary talents and resilience of these remarkable women that shine through. A revelation."-- "Andrew Wilson, author of Beautiful Shadow: The Life of Patricia Highsmith"

About the Author

Rachel Trethewey read History at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where she won the Philip Geddes Prize for student journalism. During her journalistic career she wrote features for the Daily Mail and Daily Express, and subsequently reviewed history books for The Independent. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is the author of The Churchill Sisters, about Winston Churchill's daughters. She lives in Devon.