Diana Mosley: Mitford Beauty, British Fascist, Hitler's Angel

New York: William Morrow; HarperCollinsPublishers, 2003. xii, 432 pages, illustrations; 24 cm. Near fine. Tight, clean copy. Paperclip indentations/endpapers. Dust jacket with light shelfwear. "She was born the Hon. Diana Freeman-Mitford in 1910. The most beautiful and the cleverest of the six Mitford sisters, she was eighteen when she married Bryan Guinness, of the brewing dynasty, by whom she had two sons. After four years, she left him for the fascist leader, Oswald Mosley, who was married to Cimmie Curzon. Diana set herself up as Mosley's mistress - a course of action that horrified her family and scandalised society. In 1933 she took her sister Unity to Germany; soon both had met the new German leader, Adolf Hitler. Diana became so close to him that when she and Mosley married in 1936 (after the death of Mosley's wife) the ceremony took place in the Goebbels' drawing room and Hitler was guest of honor. She continued to visit Hitler until a month before the outbreak of war; and afterwards, for many years, refused to believe in the reality of the Holocaust. After the war, they rebuilt their lives, though ostracised by many, making homes first in Ireland and then in the Temple de la Gloire outside Paris, entertaining and being entertained by pre-war friends and new ones, including the Windsors. Attempts by Mosley to enter mainstream British politics failed abjectly; for him at least, the message of the real world finally got through. His death, after almost fifty years together, devastated Diana. Her loyalty to him remained unquestioning, his political beliefs as sacred in death as in life." - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo.