'The Pursuit of Love' - Nancy Mitford Quiz

Answer: An entrenching tool

The fearsome Uncle Matthew bludgeoned eight Germans to death with his spade, which is kept on display complete with human blood and hair.

The character of Uncle Matthew was based on the author's father, the eccentric and explosive David Mitford. His character has been greatly exaggerated, but the book is often taken to be more literally autobiographical than it really is, and David Mitford's reputation has suffered as a result.

Answer: Looking after his health

Davey, although a warm and lovable character, is an obsessive hypochondriac. Fanny, the narrator, comments: 'He seemed to regard his body with the affectionate preoccupation of a farmer towards a pig - not a good doer, the small one of the litter, which must somehow be made a credit to the farm.'

Answer: The linen cupboard

The Radlett's secret society of the Hons gather to talk in a disused linen cupboard, as it is the only warm room in the house, due to the ancient and defective central heating. The girls continue to describe people as 'hons' (good) and 'counter-hons' (bad) throughout adulthood.

Answer: All of these reasons

Uncle Matthew is xenophobic, and feels that the aristocracy are inherently better people than 'new money'. To make matters worse. the Kroesig family show their High Church allegiance by genuflecting towards Jerusalem. Consequently Uncle Matthew considers them to be 'blasted idolaters'. Open-minded to the last, the only positive thing Matthew can find to say about Tony is: 'at least the fella's not a Roman Catholic'.

Answer: Moira

Tony chose to name his daughter after his sister who had died as an infant. Linda hates the name, but thinks it suits the child, whom she rejects from birth. She later claims that this rejection is because she knew her relationship with Tony was failing, and affection for Moira would have trapped her in her disastrous marriage.

Answer: Communists

Linda is an amalgamation of all the author's sisters. Here, she adopts Decca's Communist politics, and Linda's life mimics hers, as she runs away from her wealthy family, and struggles to carry out housework and understand telephone bills. However, unlike Linda, in the long term, Decca stuck to her views, and lived them out, never reverting to her aristocratic roots. Decca is best known for her expose of the funeral industry in 'The American Way of Death'.

Answer: Gare du Nord, Paris

The Duc de Sauveterre finds Linda crying at the main train station in Paris, as she makes her way home from Spain after ending her marriage to Christian. Fabrice de Sauveterre was based on the author's lover, Gaston Palewski, to whom the book is dedicated.

He was extremely embarrassed to find himself cast as a romantic hero, as Palewski had always made it clear that he was only with Mitford for a short affaire.

Answer: Sister

The Bolter is Fanny's mother, and sister to both Aunt Sadie and Aunt Emily. She is known as the Bolter because she frequently 'bolts' from relationships to run away with new lovers.

Answer: She dies in childbirth

She gives birth to a child whom she names Fabrice, and then dies. Fanny adopts this child, and brings him up with her own children, as she herself was adopted by her aunt.

Answer: Love in a Cold Climate

'Love in a Cold Climate' is often considered to be Nancy Mitford's best work: certainly it has a memorably English title. It also has Fanny as narrator, and its events are concurrent with 'The Pursuit of Love', including many of the same characters, and introducing new ones. 'The Cure for Love' is a comic Latin poem by Ovid; 'Cold Comfort Farm' was a 1930s comic novel by Stella Gibbons. 'Hons and Rebels' was an autobiography written by Nancy's sister Jessica, and is frequently perilously close to Nancy's work of 'fiction'.