the pursuit of love and love in a cold climate

The book's timing slots in with that of Mitford's 1945 The Pursuit of Love – the two plotlines run in parallel – and it shares many of the same characters: Uncle Matthew and Aunt Sadie and their impossible children, cousin Fanny who narrates both books, and the health-obsessed Davey Warbeck. And – strangest of all – a plainly gay character is introduced, has a wonderful time and (apparently to the horror of American readers and publishers in the 50s) is allowed his own happy ending and lovers. These people, with their firm self-assurance, their conviction that they are the top of the pile and deserve all the comforts they have, are gently sent up and shown to be absurd. And yet the book is subversive as well as funny and comforting. It is a book about rich, aristocratic people, people with titles and no jobs, and although Mitford liked to claim to be left wing, she was never one for giving up any of her privileges, and had some decidedly undemocratic ideas about the role of women and who should have the vote.

In 1949/50, according to Nancy Mitford's biographers Selina Hastings and Laura Thompson, the charades included one where the then Queen ' kissed the King & shivered & everybody guessed at once!!' The answer was, of course, Love in a Cold Climate, which started enchanting readers, royal and not, in 1949 and has never stopped.

As all Guardian readers know, the royal family traditionally likes to play parlour games around now.

The pursuit of love and love in a cold climate