Jessica Mitford

Jessica Mitford (September 11, 1917 - July 22, 1996), was one of the noted Mitford sisters. She emigrated to the United States of America from England, after having run away as a young girl to join the Republican forces in Spain, and adhered to communism. She was the author of Hons and Rebels (1960), the first part of her autobiography covering her youth in the Mitford household, "A Fine Old Conflict" (1977), covering her years in America, The American Way of Death (1963), The Trial of Dr Spock (1970), and The Making of a Muckraker (1979). She married, firstly, Esmond Romilly, and, secondly, Robert Edward Treuhaft.

Mitford combined a hatred of injustice with an impish wit. In the 1950s she concocted the fund-raising technique of charging guests $5.00 to come to an event, then charging them much more to leave.