Name: A Secret Sisterhood
ISBN: 9780544883734

Emily Midorikawa

Emma Claire Sweeney

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

The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf

A Secret Sisterhood

Liz Carpenter

Moray Lyle McIntosh

The authors' premise is an interesting one; exploring the friendships of female authors and the influence of these relationships on some of the most significant writers of the Western world. Midorikawa and Sweeney tackle four sets of women; Jane Austen and Anne Sharp, Charlotte Brontë and Mary Taylor, George Eliot and Harriet Beecher Stowe and Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield but while they produce engaging biographies the analysis is too often brief and superficial. This is particularly evident in the section on Jane Austen where, despite a description of the discovery of a previously overlooked document the evidence of an important friendship between the author and her niece's governess and unpublished playwright is largely conjectural. The lack of decent referencing is a major weakness in a work which claims to be a corrective to the neglect of female friendship by other scholars and the dearth of primary sources is disappointing. 

The later sections fare better but other than recounting the overlapping lives of very interesting women the authors reach few significant conclusions. The best section by far is the final one which tackles Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. Ironically, this is one relationship that had frequently been considered and the two women are famous rivals. With a sensitivity that is far more effective than elsewhere in the book Midorikawa and Sweeney argue that the two women, while wary and often envious of eachother's talent, had a deep if inconsistent friendship that deeply affected the work they produced. 

The authors struggle to add depth to their hypothesis in the conclusion, which rather lamely lists other pairs of literary women and irritatingly refers to their own friendship in the third person. A scholarly article, properly referenced, focusing on their nuanced analysis of Woolf and Mansfield would have been far stronger than than this work as a whole. There can be no doubt that friendships between women writers we're as significant as famous examples amongst their make counterparts. It is almost inevitable that these have been neglected by scholars just as Midorikawa and Sweeney suggest, however their contribution would have been better served by choosing stronger examples that relied less on conjecture and providing a much deeper analysis.

Judy Hudgins

An interesting look at friendships of some famous writers. Makes me glad I have found my 'tribe' of supporting women.

A Secret Sisterhood The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf

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