Mitford family Vanessa, Atalanta, and Jessica. A portion of Jessica Mitford's writing is used as a spoken-word introduction to the song "Last Act of Defiance", about the New Mexico State Penitentiary riot, on thrash metal band Exodus's 1989 album "Fabulous Disaster". Mitford sisters by William Acton Mitford family The Mitford family is a gentry (minor aristocratic) English family whose main family line had seats at Mitford, Northumberland. Several heads of the family served as High Sheriff of Northumberland. A junior line, with seats at Newton Park, Northumberland, and Exbury House, Hampshire, descends via the historian William Mitford (1744–1827) and were twice elevated
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters scalding wit and best selling novelist; Pamela, who craved a quiet country life; Diana, the fascist jailed during the Second World War; Unity, whose obsession with Hitler led to her demise, Jessica, the runaway communist; and Deborah, the socialite who became Duchess of Devonshire. The book was well received both critically and commercially. In particular previously held perceptions were challenged. India Knight wrote in the "Sunday Times"; "we didn’t really know them especially well, it turns out. Jessica was not that good; Diana briefly sinister but also clever, kind, fatally loyal to her Blackshirt husband, Oswald Mosley, and so on."