Emma Claire SweeneyReviews

I will admit that at first the tone of this book struck me as a little twee and overly whimsical. The authors likened their shared dreams of being writers to those of 19th century novelists and thus seemed to be projecting their emotions in a slightly discomforting manner. As I read on, though, I got used to this and unbent towards the book. ‘A Secret Sisterhood’ turned out to be a sensitively written, thoughtful, and moving account of four literary friendships. Each is constructed from surviving letters and journals, illuminating how women dealt with the constraints placed on their lives and artistic endeavours by society over the past two hundred years. The four friendships are presented in chronological order, which also happens to ascending order of available evidence. The letters between Jane Austen and Anne Sharpe haven’t survived, making this the most speculative section. By contrast, plenty of letters and journals survive to show the complexity of the bond between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the four friendships was the support and critique the women gave to each other’s literary ambitions. The authors repeatedly point out that collaborative literary friendships between men are often celebrated, while those between women tend to get forgotten. This book is an attempt to start redressing the balance. Once accustomed to its style, I found it enjoyable and informative.

This history of female authors and their friendships offers something new to the well-known stories of several writers. Rather than writing in isolation, friendships with other women writers sustained and propelled authors like Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf to their success. I was especially intrigued to learn about the correspondence between George Eliot and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Overall, a great read for better understanding these pivotal writers.

This is a lively and intelligent exploration of female friendships between prominent British writers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I certainly learned something new from reading the book!

A sensitive and unusual novel set in my hometown of Morecambe. Maeve runs a guest house for people with learning difficulties. She is single and has some good friends. The novel is about the present when we meet Maeve in her 80s and the past, going back to post-war Morecambe and its heyday. The past is rekindled when Vincent, a former friend, turns up at the guest house. Maeve is a twin, her sister Edie was born with learning difficulties and epilepsy and the novel describes how life was for Edie and her family in those days, comparing it with the treatment today as two of her employees with learning difficulties require support from social services. An interesting read that isn't too sentimental, is compassionate and well thought through.

This is an engaging book, if a bit earnest for my taste. I didn't find the central thesis--that little-known women's friendships played pivotal roles in the writing of four famous female writers--particularly compelling; at least I felt that the authors overstated their case. However, the narrative parts of the book were well-written, and I'm not going to complain about time spent with Charlotte Bronte or Harriet Beecher Stowe.

In A Secret Sisterhood, co-authors Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney examine the fraught literary friendships of four classic female writers: Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf. All four of these famous women relied on close relationships with female companions to sustain and inspire them. Nonetheless, these friendships were also marked by misunderstandings, petty jealousies, and long periods of estrangement. This book's prose isn't great (our heroines are constantly "putting pen to paper", to cite one overused phrase), but overall this is a solid collective biography that sheds new light on often-neglected relationships.½

“A Secret Sisterhood” examines the relationships that early female writers had with friends. Most that is written about Austen and Charlotte Bronte shows them working in isolation (aside from the Bronte siblings); in fact they both had active friendships with other women both through correspondence and face to face, where they talked about their work. Eliot and Woolf have less of a reputation for loneliness, but still aren’t considered to be extroverts. But they, too, had their special friends with whom they could talk shop.

Jane Austen was friends with her brother’s nanny (which was not looked upon well), who was a playwright when not wrangling kids; author Mary Taylor helped Charlotte Bronte; the outcast George Eliot (outcast for cohabiting with a married man for years) had a long correspondence with Harriet Beecher Stowe; and Virginia Woolf had a relationship both friendly and very competitive with author Katherine Mansfield. These friendships helped sustain the writers in their solitary work (even with people around them, a writer works alone) and provided sounding boards for their new writings.

The authors, themselves friends since the beginnings of their writing careers and who first found success at almost the same time as each other, have done meticulous research and found previously unread documents on or by their subjects. It’s an interesting read, so see how these friendships affected their writing. Much has been made of the friendships of certain male authors- Byron and Shelley, Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins- and now at last we have the feminine side of that coin – and a foreword by Margaret Atwood. Four and a half stars.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. Full review to come closer to the publication date.

A delightful look at female literary friendships that have been too-long overlooked. Featuring Jane Austen and governess playwright Anne Sharp; the pioneering feminist author Mary Taylor and her influence on the work of Charlotte Brontë; the transatlantic correspondence of George Eliot and Harriet Beecher Stowe; and the oft misunderstood relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield.

3.5 Maeve is nearing eighty and except for her time in college has never lived anywhere else but in Sea View Lodge. A Lodge that caters to the mentally and physically disadvantage, and where two young people with Downs syndrome live and work. This is now her life now, but she once had a twin sister, Edie, a sister who was born mentally and physically handicapped, a sister she loved very much. A sister her mother and father kept at home despite pressure from the doctors and social services to institutionalize her, a sister whose eventual fate causes her unending grief and guilt. Then a friend from the past arrives and just maybe she can come to terms with her past.

This book was inspired by the Author's own sister and it is a emotional but worthy read. The pressure in the fifties and sixties to sterilize these unfortunate children, to institutionalize them and basically to forget about them and concentrate on their remaining family members, heartbreaking. Maeve's story as she tries to live her own life, while always including her sister, was just full of lobe and hope. Things don't turn out as planned for her but she makes the most of what she has left by catering to and helping others less fortunate. The present story and the past story were equally compelling, something that I very rarely find in books that skip back and forth in time. I enjoyed these characters, and in between we hear from Edie herself, in the special way she thinks and feels. Added a personal touch and insight as well. All in all a very good and heartfelt story.

ARC from Netgalley.½