Mrs. Miniver (character) the influence of the American Office of War Information, the film attempted to undermine Hollywood's prewar depiction of Britain as a glamorous bastion of social privilege, anachronistic habits and snobbery in favour of more democratic, modern images. To this end, the social status enjoyed by the Miniver family in the print version was downgraded and increased attention was given to the erosion of class barriers under the pressures of wartime. In 1942, the film won an Oscar in the Best Picture category and both Greer Garson and Teresa Wright won an Oscar in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress
Mrs. Ted Bliss to the character of Mrs. Bliss. Walter Goodman, a television critic for "The New York Times", mentions in his review that "[the book] may not be Stanley Elkin's best, but it is a smart, generous, melancholy, funny, even elegiac work by a prodigious practitioner". "Publishers Weekly" writes that "Elkin is at his best here, blessed with the gift of one-liner insight and a definite, if reluctantly exercised, ability to tug on a reader's heartstrings". Elkin won the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award in the fiction category for the novel. The book was nominated along with "Independence Day" (by Richard