Nancy Mitford – Highland Fling – SIGNED First Edition 1931

A first edition, first printing of Highland Fling by Nancy Mitford, published by Thornton Butterworth, London in 1931. A near fine copy SIGNED and INSCRIBED by Mitford to the half title page in blue ink (Nina and Derek/with love/Nancy), with the bookplate of Edward Wassermann designed by Marie Laurencin, to the front pastedown, some fading to the spine and toning to the text block.

This copy was originally presented by Nancy Mitford to Nina Ogilvie-Grant and Derek Studley-Herbert; Edward Wassermann, later Edward Waterman, the American banker, bibliophile, art collector and literary critic was a distinguished subsequent owner, rather than necessarily its original recipient. Nina Ogilvie-Grant, twelfth Countess of Seafield in her own right, was a wealthy Scottish peeress, landowner and friend of Nancy Mitford. She married Derek Studley-Herbert, an Eton-educated sportsman and landowner, in January 1930. The fashionable young couple belonged to Mitford’s aristocratic social circle when Highland Fling appeared the following year in 1931. Nancy’s affectionate presentation inscription therefore records a personal association with her newly married friends.

Highland Fling was Nancy Mitford’s first novel and an early example of her social satire. At a shooting party in Dulloch Castle, fashionable young guests collide with an eccentric, tradition-bound older generation. Jane Dacre falls for Albert Gates, a mischievous surrealist painter, amid hunting, romantic confusion and aristocratic absurdity. Light, affectionate and sharply observed, the novel mocks upper-class customs while anticipating the wit, characterisation and generational comedy perfected in Mitford’s later fiction.

The book is dedicated to the Hon. James Alexander Wedderburn “Hamish” St Clair-Erskine, son of the 5th Earl of Rosslyn. Nancy had met him in 1928 and remained passionately infatuated with him for five years. They were intermittently and unofficially engaged, although Hamish was homosexual—something Nancy may not initially have understood or accepted. He had reportedly been previously involved with her brother, Tom Mitford.

When published in 1931, Highland Fling emerged directly from this period: its Scottish aristocratic setting and several characters drew upon Hamish and his social circle. The dedication was therefore sincerely romantic rather than merely friendly. Their relationship finally ended in 1933, leaving Nancy devastated. Her official biographical site describes Hamish as the first of her three great but “unsatisfactory” loves.