Male literary friendships are the stuff of legend, but what about the friendships of women writers?

A SECRET SISTERHOOD --- 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.