Book Bite: A Secret Sisterhood - Scholarsquare

As Women’s History Month 2025 moves along in the UK and the US, I have many more books to share. I have made reading books written by women a priority again this year (see my 2025 Reading Goals for more info), and there is no better time to highlight history books authored by women. While I do love a highly specific book from a subgenre, I also appreciate general intro books that make history accessible to anyone and everyone. This is a larger group biography, covering the lives of several female authors from the last two hundred and fifty years, helping us to understand the influence that female friendships has played in Western literature. Let’s get into A Secret Sisterhood by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney!

A Secret Sisterhood: The Hidden Friendships of Austen, Bronte, Eliot and Woolf, Emily Midorikawa, Emma Claire Sweeney

A Secret Sisterhood uncovers the hidden literary friendships of the world’s most respected female authors.

Drawing on letters and diaries, some of which have never been published before, this book will reveal Jane Austen’s bond with a family servant, the amateur playwright Anne Sharp; how Charlotte Brontë was inspired by the daring feminist Mary Taylor; the transatlantic relationship between George Eliot and the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe; and the underlying erotic charge that lit the friendship of Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield – a pair too often dismissed as bitter foes.

In their first book together, Midorikawa and Sweeney resurrect these literary collaborations, which were sometimes illicit, scandalous and volatile; sometimes supportive, radical or inspiring; but always, until now, tantalisingly consigned to the shadows.

A Secret Sisterhood by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney

Why You Should Read This…

I will admit, when I first started reading this, I was slightly taken aback- the book really focuses on Austen, Brontë, Eliot, and Woolf’s friends and their careers. We spend some time looking at their friendships but we spend quite a bit of time with the “secondary” authors. (I mean secondary to our four named authors here.) However, after adjusting my expectations, I think that that was a fantastic choice. Many of us know these four women very well, especially Austen and Brontë. I love that Midorikawa and Sweeney have chosen to bring other female authors into the spotlight, and to highlight their contributions to these authors’ works in addition to their own.

I also think that this is an exceptionally readable group biography. It is clear that Midorikawa and Sweeney did an incredible amount of research for this book, but it is entertaining and engaging, and it felt like you were spending time with each of these women. Their passion for the subject is obvious and I love that they’ve turned their attention to female authors. More often than not, literary biographies focus on other “great” authors that tend to be male and the influences that they had. However, that excludes women from their own story. A brilliant group bio, perfect for anyone interested in classic literature or women’s history!