Madame de Pompadour, Signed by Nancy Mitford
[Signed] Mitford, Nancy. Madame de Pompadour. Illustrated Edition. 1968. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition. The book is inscribed, “Miss Audrey Astbury, with the grateful thanks of the author, Nancy Mitford, 1971.”
The Pursuit of Love is sublime, but this, Mitford’s first work of nonfiction, is a landmark achievement. Much as Chanel released women from their corsets, Mitford freed the historical biography from the mind-numbing constraints of inconsequential dates and meaningless statistics. Her conversational style, then groundbreaking, is now widely imitated. She also ignited a re-evaluation of de Pompadour, whom male biographers had considered a trivial character. Here, the clever courtesan emerges a great aesthete and influential patron of the arts.
“Surely a king who loves pleasure is less dangerous than one who loves glory?”
--Nancy Mitford