Diana Mosley

A collection of signed letters and postcards by Lady Diana Mosley, presented with a signed first edition of her biography.

• Sold as a collection of 89 correspondences and 1 book.
• Lady Diana Mosley (née Mitford, British).
• 78 autographed letters and 11 autographed postcards, totaling 160 pages.
• Diana Mosley, by Anne de Courcy. London: Chatto & Windus, 2003.
• Hand signed “Diana Mosley” and “Diana.”
• These works are presented unframed.

An extensive archive of famed socialite and British fascist, Lady Diana Mosley. This collection is presented alongside the first edition of her biography by Anne de Courcy, published the year of Mosley's death. The letters and postcards are often addressed to her typist and later close friend, Kay Gaudin, and written from Paris, Orsay, Chatsworth, the Temple de la Gloire and elsewhere. The collection is a substantial and highly personal archive, combining literary, social and political interest, and offering rare insight into the private world of Diana Mosley and the wider Mitford circle.

An unusually extensive and revealing correspondence, beginning in connection with Gaudin’s work typing Mosley’s manuscripts and developing into a warm, candid and sustained friendship. The letters range widely across family matters, literary projects, society gossip, politics, illness, bereavement and old age, offering a vivid private record of one of the twentieth century’s most controversial figures.

Of particular significance are Diana’s numerous references to her sister Nancy Mitford, including intimate comments during Nancy’s final illness and affecting reflections after her death. Elsewhere she writes of visits to Chatsworth, the preparation of biographies, the complex dynamics of the Mitford family, and memories of a vanished aristocratic world. The archive is also notable for Mosley’s undiminished political views, preserving the prejudices and convictions she continued to hold throughout her life.