The Mitford Family Album

Of the making of books about England's celebrated and eccentric Mitford family there seems to be no end. The usefulness of this compilation, written by a daughter of Deborah, youngest of the Mitford sisters, is the wealth of pictures: there are 180 of them, showing the members of the strikingly good-looking family in their moments of supreme folly (Unity taking tea with Hitler, Diana at a fascist rally) as well as in relaxed moments at parties, balls and in their endless succession of country houses. Because many of the pictures are so artless, they are a particularly telling reflection of a way of life now irretrievably gone. The reproduction is not as clear as it could be, but the effect is still strikingparticularly in the recurrent group shots in which the family visibly ages and draws apart. Murphy's text is knowledgeable, sensible and frank. (May 17)