A Secret Sisterhood

<p>Male literary friendships are the stuff of legend but what about the friendships of women writers? <i>A Secret Sisterhood</i> drawing on letters and diaries some never published before brings to light a wealth of surprising female collaborations: the friendship between Jane Austen and one of the family servants amateur 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 the ebullient Harriet Beecher Stowe; and Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield most often portrayed as bitter foes but who in fact enjoyed a complex friendship. They were sometimes scandalous and volatile sometimes supportive and inspiring but always--until now--tantalizingly consigned to the shadows.<br> </p>