Deborah Devonshire

Diary – 22 September 2007

In the wake of my niece by marriage, Charlotte Mosley, queen of editors, I have done a few book signings lately in aid of The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters.

issue 22 September 2007

In the wake of my niece by marriage, Charlotte Mosley, queen of editors, I have done a few book signings lately in aid of The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. The reason for joining her is because I am a contributor to the book and am still alive, but alas my sisters are not. Charlotte is the only person who could have made this book. She has been part of the family since 1975, when she married Diana’s son Alexander, and has an enviable record as an editor with the best, shortest, sharpest, most accurate footnotes in the business. Who else would have waded through 12,000 letters to choose 600 covering 80 years? Who else could have been entrusted with intimate family relationships?

Publishers sometimes think it is a Good Idea for an author to do a book signing to give the book a shove. We were invited to bookshops where we found an apparently inexhaustible supply of the things piled in heaps round Exhibit A, us.

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