A Secret Sisterhood: The Hidden Friendships of Austen, Bronte, Eliot and Woolf - Hardcover

Midorikawa, Emily

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1781315949 ISBN 13: 9781781315941

Publisher: Aurum, 2017

Synopsis

Drawing on letters and diaries, some of which have never been published before, this book will reveal Jane Austen's bond with a family servant, the amateur playwright Anne Sharp, how Charlotte Bronte was inspired by the daring feminist Mary Taylor, the transatlantic relationship between George Eliot and the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the underlying erotic charge that lit the friendship of Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield - a pair too often dismissed as bitter foes.

About this title

About the Author

EMILY MIDORIKAWA’s work has been published in the Daily Telegraph, the Independent on Sunday, and the Times. She is a winner of the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and was a runner-up in the SI Leeds Literary Prize (judged by Margaret Busby) and the Yeovil Literary Prize (judged by Tracy Chevalier). She has a history degree from University College London, and is a graduate of the University of East Anglia’s creative writing masters program. She now teaches at New York University–London. 

Review

"Enthralling, illuminating, and a treat for fans of any of the writers who are covered." —STARRED Booklist

"Rich and revealing...these forgotten friendships, from illicit and scandalous to radical and inspiring, are revelations." —KIRKUS

"[An] evocative and well-researched ode to female solidarity." —Publishers Weekly

"Extraordinary detective work...fascinating...readers interested in women writers and these authors in particular will find this work enlightening." —Library Journal

"Now that A Secret Sisterhood is in print it will be even more difficult than ever before for critics and biographers, male or female, to dismiss, ignore or bury the friendships that literary women have enjoyed. And that’s worth cheering!"  —New York Journal of Books

“A Secret Sisterhood is a marvel. On the strength of a hunch, two friends embark on a research mission that winds up becoming a vital and necessary contribution to women's history, literary history, and the literature of friendship. Beautifully written, rich with insight and feeling, this book is a must-read for anyone who knows that behind every great woman stands a great female friend.”
—Kate Bolick, author of Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own

“In this wise and exhilarating book, Midorikawa and Sweeney, literary friends themselves, delve into the friendships of women writers, learning lessons along the way about making art, making and keeping friends, and the perils and pleasures of literary life.”
—Samantha Ellis, author of How to Be a Heroine: Or, What I've Learned from Reading Too Much

“A Secret Sisterhood offers a clever new perspective on established literary figures. While we may inherit family and circumstances, we get to choose our friends; and those these famous women writers have chosen reveal much that is fresh and fascinating about their lives and their work.”
—Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring and editor of Reader, I Married Him

“In digging up the forgotten friendships chronicled in A Secret Sisterhood, Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney have done much service to literary history. . .These four women, however iconic they have now become, were not two-dimensional icons, nor were they plaster angels: they were real people, with all the neediness, anxiety, ardor, and complexity that come with the territory.”
—Margaret Atwood, from the foreword

About this edition

• Publisher: Aurum
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1781315949
• ISBN 13: 9781781315941
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320