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Cover image for A secret sisterhood : the literary friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot & Virginia Woolf
Format:
Book
Title:
A secret sisterhood : the literary friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot & Virginia Woolf
Other title(s):
Literary friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf
ISBN:
9780544883734
Edition:
First U.S. edition.
Publication:
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2017]
Physical Description:
xx, 331 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm
Contents:
Foreword / by Margaret Atwood -- Introduction : In search of a secret sisterhood -- Jane Austen & Anne Sharp. A circle of single women -- Rebellion behind closed doors -- Closing ranks -- Charlotte Brontë & Mary Taylor. Three's a crowd -- Two adventurous spirits -- One great myth -- George Eliot & Harriet Beecher Stowe. The stuff of legend -- The specter of scandal -- An act of betrayal -- Katherine Mansfield & Virginia Woolf. Friends or foes? -- Cat-and-mouse -- Life and death -- Epilogue : A web of literary connections.
Summary:
"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"-- Provided by publisher.

"A fascinating, inspirational look at the relationships between some of our best-loved female authors and their little-known literary collaborators and friends"-- Provided by publisher.
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