Nancy Mitford’s Pursuit of Love is hit with a ‘trigger warning’ for ‘images of prejudice’

A new edition of Nancy Mitford’s novel The Pursuit of Love has been hit with a trigger warning by publishers.

The Pursuit Of Love was written by the English author in 1945 and she wrote two sequels, Love in a Cold Climate in 1949 and Don’t Tell Alfred in 1960.

However, the original novel was recently re-published by Penguin, along with a warning to warn readers about “images of prejudice” in its pages.

According to The Telegraphreads the warning in the new edition: ‘This book contains some expressions and images of prejudices which were commonplace in British society at the time it was written.

“These prejudices were wrong then and are wrong today.”

The warning adds that publishers don’t want to rewrite history, saying, “We’re printing the novel as it was originally published because making changes would be like pretending these biases never existed.”

The novel, recently made into a popular BBC series starring Lily James, follows the beautiful daughter of a wealthy family who embarks on a turbulent inter-war journey to find her true love.

She first falls for a cocky Tory politician, then romances a staunch communist, followed by a French duke.

Meanwhile, her cousin Fanny Logan is eager to find a stable life by settling down with a reliable husband.

The couple’s differing views on love and relationships take their lives in different directions at a time when the nation is becoming increasingly politically divided.

While it’s unclear what controversial opinions the note specifically warns against, the character of Uncle Matthew is often portrayed as a comically brutal and xenophobic war veteran.

With an intense distaste for foreigners, a draconian approach to childcare, and an absolutely horrible attitude toward women, Uncle Matthew, Linda’s father, is as politically incorrect as he is ill-tempered.

In the novel, Uncle Matthew beats his children, hunts them with his four magnificent bloodhounds, puts down their pets, and neglects to give them any kind of formal education.

While it’s not clear what the trigger warning is referring to, it’s Uncle Matthew, who was played by Dominic West in the recent BBC adaptation

He refers to the French as “frogs” and says he hopes his family will fight to the death if “damned foreigners” come to England.

The character was played by Dominic West in the recent BBC adaptation and was in fact based on Nancy’s real-life father, the Honorable David Freeman-Mitford, later 2nd Baron Redesdale.

In reality, Lord Redesdale’s main aim with regard to his daughters was to get them married.

None of the girls were sent to school because their father, ‘Farve’, David Freeman-Mitford, later 2nd Baron Redesdale, believed that girls did not need an education.

In fact, he felt it would ruin any possible chance of marriage.

Like Uncle Matthew, the Mitfords’ father was a world of manly pursuits, where ‘gurls’ were expected to marry a decent fellow who could handle a gun.

He was also known for his distaste for anything “foreign” as portrayed by his character Uncle Matthew, after losing a lung in World War I.

He was a typical xenophobe, having come back from the First World War with an aversion to the French and a deep hatred of the Germans.

When not busy with the House of Lords, he organized ‘child hunts’ over his Oxfordshire estate, in which his own children took part.

It is thought that he would give them an edge before unleashing the bloodhounds.

The Pursuit Of Love was written by Nancy Mitford in 1945 and she wrote two sequels, Love in a Cold Climate in 1949 and Don’t Tell Alfred in 1960.

The book’s update comes weeks after the Southern classic Gone With The Wind also received a trigger warning over concerns about its depiction of slavery in the 19th century.

Set in Georgia during the American Civil War, Margaret Mitchell’s novel has been a favorite of generations of book lovers since its publication in 1936.

It was memorably brought to the silver screen in 1939 with Vivien Leigh as the Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Gable as her lover Rhett Butler.

But publisher Pan Macmillan has now decided that readers may find “racist” aspects of the era “hurtful or even harmful,” The Telegraph reports.

The novel follows the story of Scarlett O’Hara, the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, as the Southern South waged war with the abolitionist North.

Irrepressibly spoiled but equally determined, the story follows Scarlett as she learns to survive and ultimately falls for Captain Butler’s charms.

But Pan Macmillan’s latest version warns that the novel has not been edited to remove objectionable content, unlike recent books by Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming, adding that this does not mean “endorsement” of the book.