Noblesse Oblige

Description

Subtitled An Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy, Noblesse Oblige was published in 1956 and illustrated by caricaturist of English manners Osbert Lancaster. Although Nancy Mitford is credited with being the editor, she in fact only contributed one essay, The English Aristocracy, previously published in 1955 in the magazine Encounter. The other essays are by Alan S. C. Ross, “Strix” and Christopher Sykes and Evelyn Waugh, with a poem by John Betjeman, How to Get on in Society. Betjeman’s poem satirises the very principles that have been proposed in all the previous essays, mocking the snobbery of the upper classes: ‘Phone for the fish-knives, Norman/As Cook is little unreserved;/You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes/And I must have things daintily served.’ This is the Third Impression from 1956 and is in excellent condition.