Nancy Mitford. With a dust jacket design by Cecil Beaton.
Hamish Hamilton. London. 1951. First edition. British edition. Hardback, octavo; blue cloth-bound boards, gilt title to spine, dust jacket. 270 pages. English. 190 x 130mm. 0.3kg. . Very good in very good dust jacket; light chipping to jacket at forecorners and spine ends with some slight loss, some short tears to lower edge repaired by tape to verso, very small tear towards centre of spine, not price-clipped; fading at spine ends of cloth, clean with no inscriptions.
Nancy Mitford's seventh novel is built around the marriage of an English beauty, Grace Allingham to a French aristocrat, Marquis Charles-Edouard de Valhubert. The "Blessing" is their son, Sigismond. The plot centres on the contrasting views of the English and French on the nature of marriage and the importance of fidelity (or infidelity). The book is semi-autobiographical, touching on the difficulties of Mitford's relationship with Gaston Palewski. Cecil Beaton designed the dust jacket for the book. It features a rebellious Sigismond, brandishing a stick, atop a Baroque equestrian statue and surrounded by a braying crowd.
