How long does it take to read Daughters and Rebels?
Jessica Mitford
Daughters and Rebels by Jessica Mitford takes about 4 hours 48 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 4 hours 48 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1960. 262 pages, about 72,050 words.
10 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 8 hours |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 4 hours 48 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours |
The page count is the median across 23 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Jessica Mitford has written a gay and touching account of her growing up from childhood through early marriage. She was the sixth child of a pair of splendid English eccentrics, Lord and Lady Redesdale, and sister to Nancy, now famous for her novels, Unity, who became notorious through her attachment to Hitler, Diana, who married Sir Oswald Mosley and joined him in that strange anachronism, British fascism, and Deborah, the present Duchess of Devonshire. From the first, her definitely "U" background was a source of infinite boredom to Jessica and her lively account of it explains not only her own rebellion, but much about her sisters'. It seemed quite natural to little Jessica, for example, that she should learn how to shoplift. Later it was just as natural for her to fall in love with a young man she had never met. His name was Esmond Romilly, he was a nephew of Winston Churchill, and he was fighting for the Loyalists in Spain. Jessica pulled strings and things happened. She met him when he came home on leave. When he went back he was not alone. Not even the threat of the English version of the Mann Act or the arrival of her sister on a warship could tear Jessica away, and finally she and Esmond were married. After Spain they returned to London where they had an odd assortment of friends, a great deal of fun, and almost no money - a fairly permanent condition. The last third of the book is devoted to their adventures in America and it is a rollicking account of two "blueblooded babes in Hobohemia," a designation which infuriated the "babes" in question. We meet Esmond as a door-to-door stockting salesman (he took lessons), and as a bartender in Miami, as a guest badly in need of a shave and a dinner jacket but very well known to the butler. Finally the long shadow of the war clouded the Florida sunshine and the Romillys started north, Esmond headed for Canada to enlist in His Majesty's forces. He left Jessica in Washington to have her baby and it is there that the…
Subjects: Biography, Childhood and youth, Sisters, Social life and customs, Upper class families, American Authors
