Nancy Mitford

The Honourable Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE (28 November 190430 June 1973), novelist and biographer, was born in London, the eldest daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdale. She is one of the noted Mitford sisters, was an essayist in, and editor of, Noblesse Oblige (1956), in which she famously helped to originate the famous 'U', or upper-class, and 'non-U' classification of linguistic usage and behaviour (see U and non-U English) although this is something she saw as a bit of a tease rather than a serious matter. She is best known for her series of novels about upper-class life but she also wrote three well-received biographies.