The sparkling prose of Nancy Mitford is the perfect antidote to a dose of shingles - (cheers, rubbish post-chemo immune system…). Re-reading her novels has brought to mind some similarities between this irresistibly caustic and funny author and the wonderful Jane Austen.

Both grew up in a large family of clever siblings in the depths of the English countryside and found inspiration in their backgrounds. Both women were ferocious readers and precociously intelligent, entertaining others with their sometimes wicked wit from an early age. At 22, Jane Austen wrote to Cassandra this wince-making comment - ‘Mrs Hall of Sherbourn was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, oweing (sic) to a fright. - I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband.’ The comic timing of this throwaway line, and the evident relish in shocking her audience, is echoed in Nancy Mitford’s ‘Love in a Cold Climate’ when Polly’s baby was born and ‘took one look, according to the Radletts, at its father, and quickly died again.’

Both writers delighted in the delicate nuances of social interaction, the perilous pursuits of love and the small but vital threads which make the fabric of life so fascinating to the keen observer of human frailty. Neither found lasting happiness in romantic attachments, but derived intense fulfilment from the success of their books. Both struggled with the anxieties of financial insecurity and relished the satisfaction of earning their own money through writing. Both were self-deprecating about their own abilities and were sometimes patronised by others who underrated their seemingly effortless brilliance.

Neither had children of their own but were devoted, amused, and amusing favourite aunts to their nieces and nephews. Both were looked after by sisters during their final painful illnesses. Both have left legacies of novels and correspondence which continue to thrill, inspire and amuse. I wonder if they would have liked each other?