Fanny Logan hardly knew what she was in for went she was sent to stay with her cousins, the Radletts, at their Gloucestershire estate. In Nancy Mitford's comic 1945 novel of falling in love among the privileged and eccentric, we meet the blustering patriarch Uncle Matthew, known to hunt his children when foxes are scarce; Aunt Sadie, the vague but doting mother; and the seven Radlett children, eager to grow up and escape. In this strange world, Fanny's solace is Linda, the most beautiful and wayward Radlett daughter, who falls first for a stuffy Tory politician, then an ardent Communist, and finally a French duke named Fabrice.