It has taken me quite a while to get through this anthology of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh’s letters. The book seemed to pall in the middle, although that did coincide with my house move and consequent distraction from everything not relating to packing and unpacking. I took it up again today and read the second half in a rush. The letters within are succinct, witty, and clever. They include gossip about a vast herd of friends, acquaintances, enemies, family members, professional rivals, and famous figures. At times this barrage of names becomes tiring, at least for me as I am not especially familiar with the literary and/or aristocratic set of the time. Nonetheless, the key names become familiar after a time and a number of those mentioned are still well known - writers especially. All of the funniest anecdotes in the letters are about Randolph Churchill, Winston’s son, who comes off as a classic boor.

I found that the letters became more interesting and moving in the latter half of the book. By this point (approximately 1951) Mitford and Waugh were discussing their respective writing in some detail, as well as analysing changes in the use of words and phrases they’d noticed. Both were unapologetic snobs, steeped in an aristocracy that seems alien (to me at least) a generation after their deaths. By this point, both felt that the modern world was encroaching on their preferred way of life. This lends a melancholy air to these later letters, which is especially notable in Mitford’s as a contrast to her earlier extreme ebullience.

Overall I found the letters entertaining and inspiring. This year I’ve begun to write letters again and found that I am extremely rusty at it. (I am old enough to have had penpals before email became available.) Mitford and Waugh demonstrate how to sustain a bitchy, fascinating, and informative correspondence for twenty-two years. Their letters reveal a lot about their writing and themselves, but what struck me most powerfully was the strength of their friendship. ( )

Not the sort of thing most readers would be interested in. Nary an intellectual thought passes between these two self-satisfied English snobs in the numerous correspondences. Certainly not the sort of book one can take in anything other than in small doses. Essentially, the letters contain almost nothing more than gossip, which they ironically insist bores them. The two of them have little curiosity about the world and letters written twenty years after they started their correspondence indicate a sort of arrested development as thinkers. But read on if you want the sordid details.

Most of these letters consist of gossip about other English upper-class snobs, which sometimes becomes malicious. In particular, they (mostly Waugh) revel in tormenting Cyril Connelly. The two letter writers think themselves witty and superior; they are such a perfect match that one wonders why they didn’t just divorce their spouses and get it on.

Were they always this way, or was it the success of Brideshead Revisited and The Pursuit of Love that bloated their egos so? How much further can I read before I have had enough?

Especially Waugh. It’s almost as if he converted to Catholicism as a stunt that would peeve all those Church of England stalwarts. His letters make clear that he is not a particularly devout Christian, and his heart-on-his-sleeve misanthropist rantings, lack of love for his children, annoyance at Christmas, etc. makes one wonder if his Catholicism is theoretical rather than one that is actually practiced.

Nancy, however, comes across as essentially and cheerfully Godless. She tends toward socialism, whereas Waugh leans just to the left of outright fascism. But they aren’t that political, deep down. One suspects it’s just another accessory that one dons that keeps them interesting to others in those rarified social gatherings.

Ms. Mitford, for her part, is perhaps the better person. Still, she doesn’t get off the hook with her references to gay friends as “pansies.” She had an irrational hatred of Americans (not having visited the US, by the way). Mitford as cinema critic: “It [Brief Encounter] is both dreary & unrealistic, unlike our books.” For someone who lived in Paris for decades and called herself a Francophile, is it not unseemly to refer to various French as “frogs” in her letters?

Waugh is your I-hate-everyone-sort, and can’t seem to resist pointing out that someone who annoyed him is a “jew” (I use his lower-case). I kept wondering if it wasn’t fatiguing to be so relentlessly “superior”? Elsewhere he says that only jews and lunatics buy the paintings of Cubists.

These letters have been excised of potentially libelous statements (even the oldest from the mid-1940’s). The two of them have strong opinions about artists (perhaps more than the art itself). Both Picasso and Matisse are dissed, for instance. Waugh cannot stand the French (especially everything they have been for the last two hundred years). Rule, Britannia!

I longed to hear something catty about the Royals. What did they think of them? ( )

This collection of letters has converted me to reading books of letters, especially if the writers are as witty and talented as Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh. A brief appendix describing people most often referred to in the correspondence helps keep the names and nicknames in mind. The biographical information on Mitford and Waugh is also helpful. I read a few letters at a time before bed each night and enjoyed them tremendously, even though Waugh was something of a sourpuss. ( )

A really good correspondence between two writers...every one interesting. ( )

I hate Waugh but I love Mitford...oh what to do? I've also never read an epistolatory collection; I don't know if I should start with one where I hate half the writers.