Loved Ones is a 1985 collection of pen portraits by Diana Mitford

Diana Mitford

Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley , was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the...

. It was published by Sidgwick & Jackson

Sidgwick & Jackson

Sidgwick & Jackson is an imprint of publishing company Pan Macmillan. It was founded in Britain in 1908. Notable early Sidgwick and Jackson authors include poet Rupert Brooke and novelist E.M. Forster...

. In 2008, three of the portraits were republished in the collection, The Pursuit of Laughter

The Pursuit of Laughter

The Pursuit of Laughter is a 2008 collection of diaries, articles, reviews and portraits by Diana Mitford. The book was published by Gibson Square and edited by Martin Rynja. Mitford's sister, Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire provides the introduction...

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Synopsis

The book includes pen portraits of leading figures that featured prominently in Mitford's life. These include Lytton Strachey

Lytton Strachey

Giles Lytton Strachey was a British writer and critic. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit...

 and Dora Carrington

Dora Carrington

Dora de Houghton Carrington , known generally as Carrington, was a British painter and decorative artist, remembered in part for her association with members of the Bloomsbury Group, especially the writer Lytton Strachey....

, former neighbours and friends of hers. Violet Hammersley, an author, close friend of her mother's and prominent figure in childhood. The writer, Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh

Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...

 a close personal friend. Professor Derek Jackson

Derek Jackson (physicist)

Professor Derek Ainslie Jackson, FRS, DFC, AFC, OBE was a spectroscopist.Derek Jackson was one of the outstanding atomic physicists of his generation, but there was very little in his life that could be called conventional....

, a leading physicist and her former brother-in-law. Lord Berners, a close personal friend she stayed with often at Faringdon House

Faringdon

Faringdon is a market town in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. It is on the edge of the Thames Valley, between the River Thames and the Ridgeway...

. Prince and Princess Clary, close friends of hers after the Second World War. The final portrait is of her second husband, Sir. Oswald Mosley

Oswald Mosley

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...

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The book also features several photographs of the selected subjects.

Cover illustration

This illustration features a detail from Henry Lamb

Henry Lamb

Henry Taylor Lamb, MC, RA was an Australian-born British painter. A follower of Augustus John, he was a founder member of the Camden Town Group.Born in Adelaide, Australia, he was the son of Sir Horace Lamb FRS...

's portrait of Mitford, painted in 1932 when she was still married to Bryan Guinness.