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A review by bowienerd_82
Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade
4.0
Eminently readable; an interesting and engaging look at five woman writers who all happened to live in the same Bloomsbury neighborhood square for at least some time between the two World Wars, including: the poet HD (Hilda Doolittle), mystery novelist Dorothy Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and writer Virginia Woolf.
This is not (nor does it try to be) an authoritative biography on any of the women; in fact there are times when I could have used a little more information (the section on Eileen Power was probably the weakest, and I knew nothing of her previously, but it seems a lot of her personal papers and correspondence had been destroyed, so I imagine the author had less to go on in that case).
The author explores the overall themes of the struggles these women faced in making their own lives on their own terms, the hurdles they faced when it came to being taken seriously in each of their various fields, the encroachment of both World Wars, but also the communities they found and formed.
A particularly enjoyable read for anyone with an interest in any of the five subjects (Dorothy Sayers was my particular hook).
This is not (nor does it try to be) an authoritative biography on any of the women; in fact there are times when I could have used a little more information (the section on Eileen Power was probably the weakest, and I knew nothing of her previously, but it seems a lot of her personal papers and correspondence had been destroyed, so I imagine the author had less to go on in that case).
The author explores the overall themes of the struggles these women faced in making their own lives on their own terms, the hurdles they faced when it came to being taken seriously in each of their various fields, the encroachment of both World Wars, but also the communities they found and formed.
A particularly enjoyable read for anyone with an interest in any of the five subjects (Dorothy Sayers was my particular hook).