Editing Jessica Mitford

{{Short description|British writer (1917–1996)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix   = [[The Honourable]]
| name               = Jessica Treuhaft
| image              = Jessica Mitford, by William Acton (cropped).jpg
| caption            = Mitford by [[William Acton (painter)|William Acton]], 1937
| birth_name         = Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1917|9|11|df=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Asthall Manor]], Oxfordshire, England
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1996|7|23|1917|9|11|df=y}}<ref name="redsheep"/><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/24/arts/jessica-mitford-incisive-critic-american-ways-britishupbringing-dies-78.html Jessica Mitford, Incisive Critic of American Ways and a BritishUpbringing, Dies at 78]</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/HERB-CAEN-The-Mourning-Fog-2973275.php |first=Herb |last=Caen |title=The Mourning Fog |date=26 July 1996 |access-date=15 November 2020 |website=SFGATE |publisher=Hearst Newspapers}}</ref>
| death_place        = [[Oakland, California]], U.S.
| known_for          = [[Mitford sisters|Mitford sister]], [[Communism|communist]] views
| notable_works      = {{plainlist|
* ''[[Hons and Rebels]]''
* ''[[The American Way of Death]]''
}}
| occupation         = [[Investigative journalist]]
| years_active       = 
| spouse             = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|[[Esmond Romilly]]<br>|1937|1941|end={{abbr|[[Missing in action|mia]]}}}}
* {{marriage|[[Robert Treuhaft]]<br>|1943}}
}}
| children           = 4
| parents            = [[David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale]]<br>Sydney Bowles
| family             = [[Mitford family|Mitford]]
}}

'''Jessica Lucy''' "'''Decca'''" '''Treuhaft''' (''née'' '''Freeman-Mitford''', later '''Romilly'''; 11 September 1917 – 23 July 1996) was an English author, one of the six aristocratic [[Mitford sisters]] noted for their sharply conflicting politics.

Jessica married her second cousin [[Esmond Romilly]], who was killed in [[World War II]], and then American civil rights lawyer [[Robert Treuhaft]], with whom she joined the [[Communist Party USA]] and worked closely in the [[Civil Rights Congress]]. Both refused to testify in front of the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]]. They resigned from the party in 1958.

Her 1960 memoir ''[[Hons and Rebels]]'' and her 1963 book of social commentary ''[[The American Way of Death]]'' both became classics.

==Early life and ancestry==
Born at [[Asthall Manor]], Oxfordshire,<ref name=Chisholm>Anne Chisholm, [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-jessica-mitford-1330361.html "Obituary: Jessica Mitford"], ''[[The Independent]]'', 25 July 1996.</ref> the sixth of seven children, Jessica Mitford was the daughter of [[David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale]], and his wife Sydney (daughter of politician and publisher [[Thomas Gibson Bowles|Thomas Bowles]]). She grew up in a series of her father's country houses. She had little formal education. Her sisters [[Unity Mitford|Unity]] and [[Diana Mitford|Diana]] were well-known [[British Union of Fascists|Fascists]].

Jessica (known as "Decca" to family and friends) later described her conservative father as "one of nature's [[fascists]]", renounced her privileged background while still a teenager, and became an adherent of [[communism]].<ref name=hons>{{cite book |last=Mitford |first=Jessica |title=Hons and Rebels |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6VIAAAAYAAJ |publisher=Isis |year=1960 |isbn=978-1-85089-441-4}}</ref> Mitford said that her parents had "appeased Hitler and Nazism. ... He had crushed the [[trade unions]], he had crushed the [[Communist Party of Germany|Communist Party]] and he had crushed the [[Jews]] ... and don't forget there's a huge strain of anti-Semitism that runs through that class in England."<ref name="outsiders"/> She was known as the "[[Political colour#Red|red]] [[Black sheep|sheep]]" of the family.<ref name="redsheep">Thomas Mallon, [http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/16/061016crbo_books1?currentPage=all "Red Sheep: How Jessica Mitford found her voice"], ''[[The New Yorker]]'', 16 October 2006.</ref>

{{Gallery
| title        = 
| align        =
| footer       =
| style        =
| state        =
| height       =
| width        =
| captionstyle =
| File:The Mitford family in 1928.jpg
 | alt1=
 | The Mitford family 1928; Front row, L to R, mother (Sydney Bowles),  Unity, Jessica and Deborah, father (David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale); middle row, Diana and Pamela; back row, Nancy and Tom.
| File:Nancy, Diana, Unity and Jessica Mitford. Sketch magazine cover 1932.jpg
 | alt2=
 | Nancy, Unity, Jessica and Diana Mitford.
| File:Asthall Manor, Asthall, nr Burford (Nancy).JPG
 | alt3=
 | Rear view of [[Asthall Manor]], the Mitford family home
}}

==Marriages and family==

===Life with Esmond Romilly===
At the age of 19, Mitford fell in love with her second cousin, [[Esmond Romilly]], who was recuperating from [[dysentery]] caught while defending [[Madrid]] with the [[International Brigades]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]]. Romilly was a nephew (by marriage) of [[Winston Churchill]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Romilly |first=Esmond |author-link=Esmond Romilly |title=Boadilla. (A Personal Record of the English Group of the Thaelmann Battalion of the International Brigade in Spain.). |url=https://theclaptonpress.com/boadilla-by-esmond-romilly/ |location=London |year=1937}}</ref> The cousins eloped to Spain, where Romilly picked up work as a reporter for the ''[[News Chronicle]]''. After some legal difficulties caused by their relatives' opposition, they [[cousin marriage|married]]. They moved to London and lived in the [[East End of London|East End]], then mostly a poor industrial area. Mitford [[home birth|gave birth at home]] to a daughter, Julia Decca Romilly, on 20 December 1937. The baby died in a [[measles]] epidemic the following May. Jessica Mitford rarely spoke of Julia in later life, and she is not referred to by name in Mitford's 1960 autobiography, ''[[Hons and Rebels]]''.<ref name=hons/>

In 1939, Romilly and Mitford emigrated to the United States. They travelled around, working odd jobs.<ref name=hons/> At the outset of World War II, Romilly enlisted in the [[Royal Canadian Air Force]]; Mitford was living in Washington D.C., and considered joining him once he was posted to England. While living in D.C, with contemporaries [[Virginia Foster Durr]] and [[Clifford Durr]], she gave birth to another daughter, Constancia Romilly ("the Donk" or "Dinky") on 9 February 1941.<ref>{{cite book |last=Salmond |first=John A. |title=The Conscience of a Lawyer: Clifford J. Durr and American Civil Liberties, 1899-1975 |url=https://archive.org/details/conscie_sal_1990_00_5023 |url-access=registration |publisher=[[University of Alabama Press]] |location=Tuscaloosa, AL |year=1990 |page=[https://archive.org/details/conscie_sal_1990_00_5023/page/264 264] |isbn=978-0-8173-0453-9}}</ref> Her husband went [[missing in action]] on 30 November 1941, on his way back from a bombing raid over [[Nazi Germany]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Romilly Esmond Mark David |url=https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/people_details.php?PeopleID=32465#:~:text=At%20the%20time%20of%20his,failed%20to%20return%20from%20operations. |access-date=2024-05-16 |website=www.uswarmemorials.org}}</ref> Mitford was devastated.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lyn |date=2010-08-28 |title=I prefer reading: Decca : the letters of Jessica Mitford - ed Peter Y Sussman |url=https://preferreading.blogspot.com/2010/08/decca-letters-of-jessica-mitford-ed.html |access-date=2024-05-16 |website=I prefer reading}}</ref>

===Life with Robert Treuhaft===
Mitford threw herself into war work. Through this, she met and married the American [[civil rights]] lawyer [[Robert Treuhaft]] in 1943 and eventually settled in [[Oakland, California]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Communist on The Hit Parade |url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/White%20Magazines%20And%20Articles/Tocsin/03-04-64.pdf |newspaper=Tocsin |location=Oakland, CA |volume=5 |issue=9 |page=1 Col A |date=4 March 1964 |access-date=25 May 2018}}</ref><ref name="Obituary: Jessica Mitford">{{Cite web |date=1996-07-24 |title=Obituary: Jessica Mitford |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-jessica-mitford-1330361.html |access-date=2024-01-15 |website=The Independent |language=en}}</ref> She became an American citizen in 1944.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lovell |first=Mary S. |title=The Mitford Girls: The Biography of an Extraordinary Family |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2oZ2mxtiCy0C |publisher=Little, Brown |year=2008 |page=403 |isbn=978-0-7481-0921-0}}</ref>

There, the couple had two sons; Nicholas, born in 1944 (who was killed in 1955 when hit by a bus), and Benjamin, born in 1947.<ref name=Chisholm/> Mitford approached her motherhood in a spirit of "benign neglect", described by her children as "matter-of-fact" and "not touchy-feely".<ref>{{cite news |last=Guthmann |first=Edward |title=Great writer. But as a mother? Jessica Mitford's children recall the woman they called Decca |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/14/DDG6PMAKDA34.DTL |work=The San Francisco Chronicle |date=17 November 2006}}</ref> She became closer to her own mother by letter over the decades, but remained estranged from her sister Diana for the rest of her life.

==Career and politics==

===Communism and left-wing politics===
Mitford and Treuhaft became active members of the [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]] in 1943. Mitford spent much of the early 1950s working as executive secretary of the local [[Civil Rights Congress]] chapter. Through this and her husband's legal practice, she was involved in a number of civil rights campaigns, notably the failed attempt to stop the execution of [[Willie McGee (convict)|Willie McGee]], an African American convicted of raping a white woman. In 1953, as Communist Party members at the height of [[McCarthyism]] and the '[[Red Scare]]', they were summoned to testify in front of the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]]. Both refused to name radical groups and friends or testify about their participation in Communist organisations, and were dismissed as 'unresponsive'.<ref>{{cite book |last=Vangen |first=A. D. |title=Honoring God to the Very, Very, Very End! |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MFDbgRIhDYQC&pg=PA113 |publisher=Xulon Press |year=2011 |page=113 |isbn=978-1-61379-893-5}}</ref><ref name="outsiders">{{cite web |title=The Outsiders: Jessica Mitford |url=http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-outsiders-jessica-mitford |website=johnpilger.com |access-date=23 August 2020}}</ref>

In 1956, Mitford published a pamphlet, "Lifeitselfmanship or How to Become a Precisely-Because Man". In response to ''[[Noblesse Oblige (book)|Noblesse Oblige]]'', the book her sister [[Nancy Mitford|Nancy]] co-wrote and edited on the class distinctions in [[British English]], popularizing the phrases "[[U and non-U English]]" (upper class and non-upper class), Jessica described L and non-L (Left and non-Left) English, mocking the clichés used by her comrades in the all-out [[class struggle]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Severo |first=Richard |date=23 July 1996 |title=Jessica Mitford, Mordant Critic of American Ways, and a British Upbringing, Dies at 78 |work=The New York Times |url=http://www.mitford.org/nytimes.htm |access-date=28 October 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012232315/http://www.mitford.org/nytimes.htm |archive-date=12 October 2007 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Cohen |first=Nick |author-link=Nick Cohen |date=20 August 2001 |title=Do you speak New Labour? |work=[[New Statesman]] |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200108200009 |access-date=28 October 2007}}</ref> (The title alludes to [[Stephen Potter]]'s satirical series of books that included ''Lifemanship''.)

Mitford and Treuhaft resigned from the American Communist Party in 1958, because they had come to the conclusion they could pursue their ideals more effectively outside the party.<ref>{{Cite ODNB |last=Chisholm |first=Anne |date=8 January 2015 |title=Mitford, Jessica Lucy Freeman- (1917–1996), writer and journalist |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/60652 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8}}</ref> Mitford felt the party had become "rather useless".<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Mallon |first=Thomas |date=2006-10-09 |title=Red Sheep |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/10/16/red-sheep |access-date=2021-09-11 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 1960, Mitford published her first book ''[[Hons and Rebels]]'' (US title: ''Daughters and Rebels''), a memoir covering her youth in the Mitford household.

===Investigative journalism===
In May 1961, Mitford travelled to [[Montgomery, Alabama]], while working on an article about [[Southern United States|Southern]] attitudes for ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]''. While there, she and a friend went to meet the arrival of a group of [[Freedom Riders]] and became caught up in a riot when a mob, led by the [[Ku Klux Klan]], attacked the civil rights activists. After the riot, Mitford proceeded to a rally led by [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] The church at which this was held was also attacked by the Klan, and Mitford and the group spent the night barricaded inside until the siege was ended by the arrival of [[Alabama National Guard]] troops.

Through his work with unions and death benefits, Treuhaft became interested in the funeral industry and persuaded Mitford to write an investigative article on the subject. Though the article, "[[Saint Peter]] Don't You Call Me", published in ''Frontier'' magazine, was not widely disseminated, it caught considerable attention when Mitford appeared on a local television broadcast with two industry representatives. Convinced of public interest, she wrote ''[[The American Way of Death]]'', which was published in 1963. In the book, Mitford harshly criticized the industry for using unscrupulous business practices to take advantage of grieving families. The book became a major best-seller and led to Congressional hearings on the funeral industry. The book was one of the inspirations for filmmaker [[Tony Richardson]]'s 1965 film ''[[The Loved One (film)|The Loved One]]'', which was based on [[Evelyn Waugh]]'s short satirical 1948 [[The Loved One (book)|novel of the same name]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Hill |first=Lee |title=A Grand Guy: The Art And Life of Terry Southern |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PzJtFBXwBsEC&pg=PA135 |year=2010 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-06-201283-8 |page=135}}</ref> subtitled "An Anglo-American Tragedy".

After ''The American Way of Death'', Mitford continued with her [[investigative journalism]]. In 1970, she published an article in the ''[[Atlantic Monthly]]'', "Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers", an exposé of the [[Famous Writers School]], a [[correspondence course]] of questionable business practices founded by [[Bennett Cerf]]. She published ''The Trial of [[Dr. Spock]], the Rev. [[William Sloane Coffin]], Jr., [[Michael Ferber]], [[Mitchell Goodman]] and [[Marcus Raskin]]'', an account of the five men's 1970 trial on charges of conspiracy to violate the [[conscription|draft laws]], followed by a harsh critique of the American prison system entitled ''Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business'' (1973), an allusion to the phrase "[[cruel and unusual punishment]]".

Mitford was a distinguished professor for the one semester in 1973 at [[San Jose State University]], where she taught a course called "The American Way" that covered the [[Watergate scandal]] and the [[McCarthy era]]. The dean insisted that the rule was that she had to swear a [[loyalty oath]] and be [[fingerprint]]ed, although this was not in her contract;  she objected, and the campus was thrown into protests and she was forced to go to court to remain able to teach.<ref>{{cite web |last=Mitford |first=Jessica |title=My Short and Happy Life As a Distinguished Professor |website=The Atlantic |date=1 October 1974 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1974/10/my-short-and-happy-life-as-a-distinguished-professor/5320/ |access-date=12 September 2016}}</ref>

===Books and music===
[[File:Jessica Mitford appearing on "After Dark, 20 August 1988.jpg|thumb|Mitford appearing on British TV show ''[[After Dark (TV series)|After Dark]]'' in 1988]]
Mitford's second memoir, ''A Fine Old Conflict'' (1977), comically describes her experiences joining and eventually leaving the Communist Party USA. Mitford titled the book after what, in her youth, she [[Mondegreen|thought were the lyrics]] to the Communist anthem, "[[The Internationale]]", which actually are "'Tis the '''final''' conflict". Mitford recounts how she was invited to join the Communist Party by her co-worker Dobby, to whom she responded, "We thought you'd never ask!" She bristled against the conservative structure in the CP, at one point upsetting the women's caucus by printing a poster with "Girls! Girls! Girls!" to draw people to an event. She mercilessly teased an elder Communist about what she perceived as his paranoia when he wrote out the name of a town where she could get chickens donated from "loyal party members" for a fund raiser. When he wrote [[Petaluma, California|Petaluma]] on a scrap of paper to avoid being overheard by possible bugs, she asked in jest how the chickens should be prepared, and wrote, "Fried or broiled".

In addition to writing and activism, Mitford tried her hand at music as singer for "Decca and the Dectones", a [[Cowbell (instrument)|cowbell]] and [[kazoo]] orchestra. She performed at numerous benefits and opened for [[Cyndi Lauper]] on the roof of the [[Virgin Records]] store in [[San Francisco]]. She recorded two short albums: one<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://cdbaby.com/cd/mitford |title=CD Baby: JESSICA MITFORD: Decca and the Dectones<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=6 April 2008 |archive-date=18 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118062739/http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/mitford |url-status=dead }}</ref> contains her rendition of "[[Maxwell's Silver Hammer]]" and "[[Grace Darling]]",<ref>Patricia Holt, [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1995/02/26/RV22908.DTL "Jessica Mitford Does the Beatles"], ''SF Gate'', 2 February 1995.</ref> and the other, two duets with friend and poet [[Maya Angelou]].<ref>[http://www.dqydj.com/prod2.htm "Maya Angelou & Jessica Mitford: 'There Is a Moral to It All'"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140802200919/http://www.dqydj.com/prod2.htm |date=2 August 2014}}, "Don't Quit Your Day Job" Records.</ref> Her last work was an update entitled ''The American Way of Death Revisited''.

==Death==
Mitford died of [[lung cancer]] in 1996, aged 78. She died in [[Oakland, California]], where she also spent most of her life.<ref name="Obituary: Jessica Mitford"/> In keeping with her wishes, she had an inexpensive funeral, costing $533.31 – she was cremated without a ceremony, her ashes scattered at sea.<ref name="redsheep" /><ref>An expensive way to go. (The Business of Bereavement), ''[[The Economist]]'' (US edition), 4 January 1997.</ref> At the time of her death, the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' [[columnist]] [[Herb Caen]] wrote "In this strangely flat era of 'diversity,' she was the rarest of birds, an exotic creature who rose each morning to become the sun around whom thousands of lives revolved."<ref>Herb Caen, [http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/HERB-CAEN-The-Mourning-Fog-2973275.php "The Mourning Fog"], ''SF Gate'', 26 July 1996</ref>

Her widower, Robert Treuhaft, survived her by five years.

==Descendants==
Two of her four children pre-deceased her.

Her surviving daughter, Constancia Romilly, continued the activist tradition, working for the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]], which campaigned for African American civil rights; she eventually became an [[emergency room]] nurse. Romilly had two children with Committee director [[James Forman]]: [[James Forman Jr.]], a [[Yale University|Yale]] professor and [[Pulitzer Prize]]-winning author, and Chaka Forman, an actor.

Her younger son, Ben Treuhaft, is a piano tuner based in [[Coventry]], UK.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Underwater Piano Shop - Tuner in Coventry and Edinburgh |url=http://tunerben.com/ |access-date=2021-11-01 |website=The Underwater Piano Shop - Coventry |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Legacy and influence==
[[John Pilger]], who had interviewed Mitford in 1983 for his series ''Outsiders'', said she "combined a finely honed social conscience and a wonderful gallows humor. She inverted stereotypes. I liked her enormously".<ref name="outsiders" />

The author [[Christopher Hitchens]] expressed his admiration for Jessica Mitford and praised ''Hons and Rebels''.<ref>{{YouTube|_fZj6ydAk7k|"Christopher Hitchens interviews Jessica Mitford (1988)"}}</ref>

[[J. K. Rowling]], author of the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' series, stated in 2002:

{{blockquote|My most influential writer, without a doubt, is Jessica Mitford. When my grand-aunt gave me ''Hons and Rebels'' when I was 14, she instantly became my heroine. She ran away from home to fight in the [[Spanish Civil War]], taking with her a camera that she had charged to her father's account. I wished I'd had the nerve to do something like that. I love the way she never outgrew some of her adolescent traits, remaining true to her politics — she was a self-taught socialist — throughout her life. I think I've read everything she wrote. I even called my daughter Jessica Rowling Arantes after her.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Fraser |first=Lindsay |date=9 November 2002 |title=Harry and me |url=https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/harry-and-me-2461742 |access-date=7 January 2022 |work=[[The Scotsman]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210609191643/https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/harry-and-me-2461742 |archive-date=9 June 2021}}</ref> }}

Rowling reviewed Mitford's book of letters, ''Decca'', in ''[[The Sunday Telegraph]]'' in 2006.<ref>J. K. Rowling, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3656769/The-first-It-Girl.html "The first It Girl"], ''[[The Sunday Telegraph]]'', 26 November 2006.</ref>

In 2010, Leslie Brody's biography of Mitford, ''Irrepressible, The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford'' was published by Counterpoint Press.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://lesliebrodyauthor.com/irrepressible/irrepressible-the-life-and-times-of-jessica-mitford-by-leslie-brody/ |title=Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford by Leslie Brody}}</ref>

In 2013, the singer [[David Bowie]] named ''[[The American Way of Death]]'' as one of his favorite books.<ref>{{cite news |last=Sherwin |first=Adam |title=From Homer to Orwell: David Bowie's 100 favourite books revealed |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/from-homer-to-orwell-david-bowies-100-favourite-books-revealed-8851127.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220608/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/from-homer-to-orwell-david-bowies-100-favourite-books-revealed-8851127.html |archive-date=8 June 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |work=The Independent |location=London |date=1 October 2013}}</ref>

==Works==
* ''[[Hons and Rebels]]'' (U.S.: ''Daughters and Rebels''), 1960
* ''[[The American Way of Death]]'', 1963
* ''The Trial of Dr. Spock, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Michael Ferber, Mitchell Goodman, and Marcus Raskin'', Macdonald, 1969
* ''Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business'', Alfred A. Knopf, 1973
* ''A Fine Old Conflict'', London: Michael Joseph, 1977
* ''The Making of a Muckraker'', London: Michael Joseph, 1979
* ''Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking'', 1979
* ''Grace Had an English Heart: The Story of [[Grace Darling]], Heroine and Victorian Superstar'', E. P. Dutton & Co, 1988. {{ISBN|0-525-24672-X}}
* ''The American Way of Birth'', 1992
* ''The American Way of Death Revisited'', 1998
* ''[[Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford]]'', edited by journalist Peter Y. Sussman. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. {{ISBN|0-375-41032-5}}

==Dramatizations and portrayals==
* Extracts from ''Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford'' were dramatized for ''Book of the Week'', [[BBC Radio 4]], five 15-minute programs broadcast in November 2006. The readers were [[Rosamund Pike]] and [[Tom Chadbon]]; the producer was Chris Wallis.
* Mitford is portrayed by [[Sienna Guillory]] in the 2020 film ''[[Son of the South (film)|Son of the South]]''.

==See also==
*''[[The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters]]''
* [[Asthall Manor]]
* [[List of people from Oakland, California#Writers and poets|List of people from Oakland, California]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140522064107/http://www.mitford.org/index1.html Jessica Mitford memorial site] 
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131115065754/http://www.mitford.org/mitinst/index.html The Mitford Institute] 
* [https://library.osu.edu/finding-aids/rarebooks/mitford89.php Jessica Mitford Papers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517184720/https://library.osu.edu/finding-aids/rarebooks/mitford89.php |date=17 May 2021 }} at The Ohio State University's Rare Books & Manuscripts Library
* [http://www.peterysussman.com/decca/ Peter Y. Sussman's main page on ''Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford'']
* [http://www.albionmonitor.com/10-9-95/deccaIndex.html Albion Monitor report on Jessica Mitford]
* [https://archive.today/20130130080636/http://www.nysun.com/article/67060?page_no=1 Correspondence Between Clinton, Treuhaft, and Mitford]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120218062213/http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead%2F00093.xml%2F Jessica Mitford's papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin] 
*[http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=1521 Robert Boynton website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211130160348/http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=1521 |date=30 November 2021 }}
*[https://archive.today/20130121093209/http://www.dailyhitchens.com/2010/04/jessica-mitford-interviewed-by.html Audio interview by Christopher Hitchens with Jessica Mitford (1988)] 
*{{cite news |author=Edward Guthmann |date=14 November 2006 |url=http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Great-writer-But-as-a-mother-Jessica-Mitford-s-2484696.php |title=Great writer. But as a mother? Jessica Mitford's children recall the woman they called Decca. |newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle}}
*{{IMDb name|2671422}}
*[http://www.law.yale.edu/faculty/JForman.htm James Forman Jr.] – Grandson of Jessica Mitford
*[http://www.nancymitford.com: The Official Nancy Mitford Website ]
*[http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-outsiders-jessica-mitford The Outsiders: John Pilger interviews Jessica Mitford Wilfred]
*{{OL author|OL403307A}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitford, Jessica}}
[[Category:1917 births]]
[[Category:1996 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century English women writers]]
[[Category:20th-century English memoirists]]
[[Category:20th-century American memoirists]]
[[Category:20th-century American women writers]]
[[Category:American women memoirists]]
[[Category:British communists]]
[[Category:Communist women writers]]
[[Category:Daughters of barons]]
[[Category:Deaths from lung cancer in California]]
[[Category:English emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:English expatriates in the United States]]
[[Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States]]
[[Category:English journalists]]
[[Category:English socialites]]
[[Category:Writers from Gloucestershire]]
[[Category:People from West Oxfordshire District]]
[[Category:People involved with death and dying]]
[[Category:San Jose State University faculty]]
[[Category:Writers from Oakland, California]]
[[Category:Mitford family|Jessica]]
[[Category:Members of the Communist Party USA]]