A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf
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- Synopsis
- Two female writers and best friends bring to light the literary friendships of four iconic female authors. Male literary friendships are the stuff of legend; think Byron and Shelley, Fitzgerald and Hemingway. But the world&’s best-loved female authors are usually mythologized as solitary eccentrics or isolated geniuses. Coauthors and real-life friends Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney prove this wrong, thanks to their discovery of a wealth of surprising collaborations: the friendship between Jane Austen and one of the family servants, playwright Anne Sharp; the daring feminist author Mary Taylor, who shaped the work of Charlotte Brontë; the transatlantic friendship of the seemingly aloof George Eliot and Harriet Beecher Stowe; and Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield, most often portrayed as bitter foes, but who, in fact, enjoyed a complex friendship fired by an underlying erotic charge. Through letters and diaries that have never been published before, A Secret Sisterhood resurrects these forgotten stories of female friendships. They were sometimes scandalous and volatile, sometimes supportive and inspiring, but always—until now—tantalizingly consigned to the shadows. With a foreword by Margaret Atwood &“A thought-provoking meditation on literary friendship as well as engagingly intimate glimpses of four of the world&’s finest writers.&”—San Francisco Chronicle &“A medley of vivid narratives.&” —The Atlantic &“Midorikawa and Sweeney have committed an exceptional act of literary espionage. English literature owes them a great debt.&” —Financial Times &“A vital and necessary contribution to women's history, literary history, and the literature of friendship.&”—Kate Bolick, author of Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own
- Copyright:
- 2017
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- Book Size:
- 365 Pages
- ISBN-13:
- 9780544883789
- Related ISBNs:
- 9781328532381
- Publisher:
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Date of Addition:
- 01/18/25
- Copyrighted By:
- status in your country.
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.
- Foreword by:
- Margaret Atwood