The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh

More performances for each other than intimate communication between friends, the letters exchanged between Waugh and Mitford, many of whichDespecially Waugh'sDhave appeared before, seem to have been meant more to amuse than to inform. An arch air suggests awareness of likely posthumous publication, and indeed in England, where the open snobbery and name-dropping gossip have proved delicious, the letters have had a modest success. Although the exchanges begin in 1944, that appears only to be the year in which the old friends began preserving most of their letters, which continued until Waugh's death in 1966. (Mitford died in 1973.) There is little serious literary talk here, and the political chatter is much on the order of Mitford's jest from Paris that a visiting English party leader allegedly complained ""he's been here a week & hasn't met the mistress of a single French politician."" Anti-American slurs abound, and Waugh adds an anti-Semitism for which Mitford lightly berates him. On occasion, he chides her lack of sympathy with his ultraconservative Catholicism, and he responds to her leftist views by labeling them as ""Communist."" Anglophiles will sift the correspondence for revelations, often exaggerated for effect, about the indiscretions of mutual acquaintances and relish the contrived wit each offers up in attempting to top the other. Yet passage of years dims the intended sparkle. Detailed notes by Charlotte Mosley, Mitford's niece by marriage, explain allusions and frivolous identifications. Photos. (Mar.)