Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
The Pursuit of Love cover art

The Pursuit of Love

By: Nancy Mitford
Narrated by: Bessie Carter
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Light Years cover art
Siren's Song cover art
What Lovers Do cover art
Sophie's Heart cover art
Someone at a Distance cover art
Consequences cover art
The Diary of a Provincial Lady cover art
Between Love and Loathing cover art
Sarah Morris Remembers cover art
The Young Clementina cover art
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment cover art
High Rising cover art
Chain Reactions cover art
King's Dragon cover art
Manalive cover art
Eden Rising cover art

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

One of the funniest, sharpest novels about love and growing up ever written, Nancy Mitford's classic is now major a BBC and Prime Video series directed by Emily Mortimer and starring Lily James, Andrew Scott and Dominic West.

'He was the great love of her life you know.'

'Oh, dulling,' said my mother, sadly, 'One always thinks that. Every, every time.'

Oh, the tedium of waiting to grow up! Longing for love, obsessed with weddings and sex, Linda and her sisters and cousin Fanny are on the lookout for the perfect lover. 

But finding Mr Right is much harder than any of the sisters had thought. Linda must suffer marriage first to a stuffy Tory MP and then to a handsome and humourless communist, before finding real love in war-torn Paris. 

Nancy Mitford's wickedly funny series continues in Love in a Cold Climate and Don't Tell Alfred.

©1945 Nancy Mitford (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Utter, utter bliss." (Daily Mail)

"A pleasure as intense as inheriting a perfect pearl necklace, or finding a silk dress in a vintage shop that fits like a glove." (Caitlin Moran, Harper's Bazaar)

"Peerless." (Zoe Heller)

What listeners say about The Pursuit of Love

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    87
  • 4 Stars
    35
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    83
  • 4 Stars
    17
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    76
  • 4 Stars
    24
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An absolute Joy

This book is hilarious and also very sad in places absolutely loved it, far better than the recent tv series.
Absolutely recommend. The narration was perfect I just wish it had been longer.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Take out the bigotry and you have no book left

Before I write this review, I would like to mention that I understand that all human genes (that have ever been since any humans left the Rift valley in Africa) have always been over 99.95% exactly the same. So, when I hear a story (told by one type of culture) that is riddled with liable against every other culture in the world; it gets my back up just a tad. I am convinced that this book needs a re-write as a second option.

If a tabloid was to spread rumors and lies about one person, they can be sued, If an old book spreads lies about the culture, religion, socio-economics, clan or melanin of many types of people; at bare minimums a re-write is due which withholds these offensive sentiments. I am mostly open minded, if anything that was being said was actually true: Then I say keep it in the book. But unfortunately everything being mention is a form of lie, liable, degrading and berating untruth about "others"; in order to think themselves into feeling superior. A false fake phoney superior, fragile as broken glass.

This story, without all the bigoted lies, is just average; run of the mill, nothing special. Just a bunch of rich, prejudice protestant Brits living soft lives off the funds of their ancestors, which were most likely stolen from the lands of same other cultures they consistently disrespect.

They spend most of the story just looking down their noses from a false sense of superiority. In my humble opinion.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Funny, poignant, wise: a treasure of a book.

Jessica Mitford, one of Nancy's younger sisters, wrote a fragment of autobiography, Hons and Rebels which is a fascinating picture of pre World War II England. Nancy, the eldest of the Mitford sisters, grew up the the same family and in the same house as Jessica, and mined the same material for this fictional reworking of these eccentric characters and momentous events. Nancy's book is funnier, sadder, cleverer - a total delight. Read, or listen, to them both but not at the same time and see what you think of them both.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful story and excellent narration

Nancy Mitford has a great sense of place and history as well as a wicked sense of humour. The story is both funny and sad and the characters are beautifully drawn. I loved it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Inhaled it!

Sparkling prose, excellent narration, I inhaled this in four listens. The characters are so well drawn and the story flows so beautifully.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Bessie Carter says the ‘N word’

I started listening ready for a book club meet in a couple of weeks and beyond horrified that the narrator confidently says the racial slur mentioned in the book. Unless you are a POC you will never understand just how exhausting and horrific it is to have these sorts of things pop up out of nowhere. It’s the sheer entitlement for me I am beyond disappointed in Penguin!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Just lovely

I loved the narration and the story. Especially as I know this to be almost a true story. Perhaps a better time in England? It certainly sounded as if it was.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A classic 20th century novel, reasonably performed

I read The Pursuit of Love a long time ago and recently listened to India Knight's modern re-telling Darling on Audible. A brave choice to re-tell a classic but it was brilliant and just perfectly narrated by Sophie Winkleman. I loved it so much I thought I would listen to the original. While I would say I did enjoy this, I'm afraid that, as other reviewers have said, it is let down by the narration which somehow doesn't capture the wit in the text. I mention Darling because I think it fair to say that I might not have been quite so critical if I had not just listened to Sophie Winkleman's superlative performance in Darling, which captures Mitford's spirit so much better. But this is an easy listen, if not a perfect adaptation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent narration

Brilliant story brilliantly read. Highly recommend to all. I love Nancy Mitford and so cleverly and thoughtfully narrated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it

Loved it - well performed and a facilitating look into the bright young things era. Saw parcelled with the stories of the Mitford sisters as written about by Jessica Mitford in Hons and Rebels.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!