Nancy Mitford. With a dust jacket design by Cecil Beaton.
New York. Random House. 1951. First US edition. Book of the Month Club. Blue cloth-bound hardback, upper board decorated with fleur de lys design and lion rampant, dust jacket. 305 pages. 210 x 145mm (8¼ x 5¾"). 0.5kg. . English. Near fine, in near fine dust jacket; very slight shelf wear, very slight ruffling to top edge, no inscriptions.
Nancy Mitford's seventh novel is built around the marriage of an English beauty, Grace Allingham to a French aristocrat, Marquis Charles-Edouard de Valhubert. The "Blessing" is their son, Sigismond. The plot centres on the contrasting views of the English and French on the nature of marriage and the importance of fidelity (or infidelity). The book is semi-autobiographical, touching on the difficulties of Mitford's relationship with Gaston Palewski. With a dust jacket design by Cecil Beaton. The jacket includes a short humorous biography of Mitford by Evelyn Waugh, to whom the book is dedicated.
