Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade

These five women...all pushed the boundaries of scholarship, of literary form, of societal norms: they refused to let their gender hold them back, but were determined to find a different way of living, one in which their creative work would take precedence.~ Francesca Wade, Square Haunting

Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade links writers H.D., Dorothy Sayers, Virginia Woolf, Eileen Power, and Jane Ellen Harrison through their time residing in London's Mecklenburgh Square. They were born in the late 19th c. and by full adulthood saw a changed world that allowed women to vote and the opening of professions to women.They defied the narrow role assigned to women to become masters of their craft.

Each woman's life and career is illuminated through their shared experience in one place. Their time in Mecklenburgh Square was pivotal to their development.

I was familiar with Woolf, knew the work of Sayers and a bit about H.D., but Power and Harrison were unfamiliar. How sad! Harrison broke through the gender barrier to become a professional scholar.  Her research impacted the Imagist writers and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Power was a fashionable and attractive academic of economics. I realized that I had read her book Medieval People several times!

I was fascinated by these women and their stories. Wade delivers a compelling narrative that combines insight and significance and good story-telling.

...real freedom entails the ability to live on one's own terms, not to allow one's identity to be proscribed or limited by anyone else.~ from Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

from the publisher:

In the early twentieth century, Mecklenburgh Square—a hidden architectural gem in the heart of London—was a radical address. On the outskirts of Bloomsbury known for the eponymous group who “lived in squares, painted in circles, and loved in triangles,” the square was home to students, struggling artists, and revolutionaries. 

In the pivotal era between the two world wars, the lives of five remarkable women intertwined at this one address: modernist poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and author and publisher Virginia Woolf. In an era when women’s freedoms were fast expanding, they each sought a space where they could live, love, and—above all—work independently. 

With sparkling insight and a novelistic style, Francesca Wade sheds new light on a group of artists and thinkers whose pioneering work would enrich the possibilities of women’s lives for generations to come.

Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars
by Francesca Wade
Crown Publishing
Tim Duggan Books
Pub Date April 7, 2020
ISBN: 9780451497796
hardcover $28.99 (USD)

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

Writers Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney were teaching in Japan when they met. They immediately connected and soon were regularly meeting and critiquing each other's writing.

As they collaborated on writing A Secret Sisterhood, they found happiness in spite of the stress. Their unfounded feared was that their 'bond between equals' would be threatened if one achieved success before the other.

When Margaret Atwood offered to write the forward for the book, it was proof that women writers do forge friendships of encouragement and support, in spite of historic stereotypes.

Jane Austen was mythologized into a happy spinster who hid her writing and relied only on her sister for support. Suppressed was her friendship with her rich brother's impoverished governess Anne Sharp, an amateur playwright.

Charlotte Bronte's friendship with boarding school friend Mary Taylor had its ups and downs, but it was Taylor who inspired Charlotte to travel abroad to continue her education. The intrepid Taylor became a feminist writer.

George Eliot, living 'in sin' with a married man, corresponded with clergyman's daughter and literary sensation Harriet Beecher Stowe. Over years, their closeness was stressed by life events, yet their regard for each other as artists prevailed.

Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield are remembered as rivals, their mutual regard and friendship overshadowed.

A Secret Sisterhood was an interesting book about the "rare sense of communion" between literary friends. One does not need to be well informed about the writers discussed for enough biographical information is included to understand the friendships in context of the authors' personal and professional lives.

I enjoyed the book and learned something about writers I am quite familiar with and a great deal about those I knew little.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf
by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 9780544883734
Hard cover $27.00

Art, Friendship, Love, Sex and Inventing Modernism

Before reading Priya Parmar's book Vanessa and Her Sister I knew very little about the Stephen family and the Bloomsbury Group. I had read many books by Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster. I recognized the names of Roger Fry and Vanessa and Clive Bell, and knew that Lytton Stachey wrote Eminent Victorians. John Maynard Keynes I knew was an important economist. But I had never studied them. I requested this book from NetGalley hoping to learn more.

The story is presented through the fictional pages of a diary kept by artist Vanessa Stephen, sister of Virginia Stephen (who later married Leonard Woolf). Their brother Thoby Stephen brings home his Cambridge University chums and they form a weekly meeting to discuss art and life and to gossip about their friends. They each go on to prominence as artists, writers, publishers, art critics, and philosophers. Interspersed with the diary entries are letters and telegrams to other group members, sent by Roger Fry, Leonard Woolf, and Lytton Stachey. The Bloomsbury men shifted their relationships between friend and lover, some later entering into relationships with women as well.

I was quite charmed from the first by Vanessa's voice. Although she tells us that Virginia insists she is not a "word" person, Vanessa is lyrical and visual in her descriptive language. Virginia needs careful handling; she can be charming and witty, cruel and selfish, and is prone to emotional breakdowns. She has also perfected the art of manipulation, and is always self-centered. Vanessa raises doubts about her sister's sexual orientation, and some thought that Virginia only ever loved her older sister Vanessa.

At first their gatherings seem splendid and full of fun with Thorby as the center. After his loss things go awry, and relationships alter. Vanessa marries Clive Bell, and Virginia jealously tries to inveigle herself between them. Alliances shift, lovers trade off, stodgy 19th c values are flaunted. We think the 1960s were radical? This group was breaking all the rules in the first decade of the century!

The novel ends rather in the middle of things, with the author offering a brief description of what became of the major players. The more well known group members included the author E. M. Forster; author Virginia Woolf ; artists Vanessa and Clive Bell; biographer Lytton Stachey; art critic Roger Fry and artist Helen Fry; artist Duncan Grant; poet Rupert Brooke; economist John Maynard Keynes; Leonard Woolf, Civil Service and later publisher and husband to Virginia.

I went online to research and learn more, and there was a lot more to learn. I suppose all books have to end somewhere. I would have liked to read about another decade or two about them. It was like a soap opera bred with High Art to produce a tale about geniuses throwing themselves against all the 'artificial' boundaries, trying to reinvent art and life.

The Virginia Woolf Blog has articles on Virginia and Clive Bell's flirtation. See Vanessa's paintings at  http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/vanessa-bell.

Vanessa and Her Sister: A Novel by Priya Parmar
Random House Publishing House-Ballantine
Publication Dec 30, 2014
ISBN 9780804276378
$26.00