Francesca Wade

Square Haunting brings together original research on five women who lived in a small area of London, examining their experiences of work and life in a period that saw dramatic improvements for some women's lives (as well as entrenchment of some restrictions). All were 'elite' in the sense that they managed to access higher education at a time when Cambridge still didn't award degrees to women (they could study, just not get the degree). I loved the way Wade brought together these very show more different women's lives to tell a story about how they dealt with discrimination and attempts to limit their choices. I had read a little about Dorothy Sayers, but this section was definitely a highlight for me. Wade shows how she hid her (only) child, continuing to write. In the process, the link between her own life and her choices re the character Harriet Vane are made clear. Also additions to the books that never quite made it - would have loved to read Woolf's new history, rethinking ideas about cultural history across time. It was still in note form when she died. Quoting Virginia Woolf-
'Literature is no one's private ground; literature is common ground. It is not cut up into nations, there are no wars there. Let us trespass freely and fearlessly and find our own way for ourselves.'

As always with this kind of book I'm left with a longer TBR pile, from Mary Beard's book about the significant of Jane Harrison's interpretation of classical women's lives, to Swastika Night which 'describes a future society ruled by descendants of Hitler's Nazi's where women are considered a subspecies...' I also want to read some of Eileen Power's history books for Penguin / Puffin. show less

[Square Haunting] is a group biography of five writers/academics connected by place, Mecklenburgh Square in London. They didn't all live there at the same time, but were all drawn to the location as a place where, as women, they could be in the middle of life and culture, but also have small place to call their own and focus on their work. The author devotes a section to each woman in the order that she lived in Mecklenburgh Square: the poet and author H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) who lived there show more from 1916-1918; the novelist Dorothy Sayers who lived there in 1920; academic of ancient history Jane Ellen Harrison who lived there from 1926-1928; economic historian Eileen Power who lived there from 1922-1940; and author Virginia Woolf who was there 1939-1940.

I loved reading about these women, who, across the board, struggled to balance the desire to be taken seriously in their fields with the hope of having a balanced and fulfilled life. There are many parallels to be drawn about the challenges they faced to have their work judged on equal footing with men. Overall, I thought this book was pretty successful, especially considering the challenging topic. Though these women had similarities, they weren't a circle and largely did not interact. Drawing them together through the location of Mecklenburgh Square worked very well for some of the women, but for others I thought the tie to place was less strong. Despite these few reservations, I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in the time period. I hadn't even heard of two of these women, and knew very little about H.D. and Dorothy Sayers. Viriginia Woolf I'm pretty familiar with, but the section about her brought some welcome new ideas about her life.

[[Francesca Wade]], the author, seems fairly young from her bio, and I will read whatever she writes next. show less

This book is so close to getting five stars, and yet I can't quite bring myself to do it! I'm conflicted! On the one hand: Wade is a wonderful writer who provides some lovely insight, and the five women she’s writing about are absolutely fascinating. I loved spending time with them through Wade’s writing.

On the other hand: I remain unsure of whether this book actually works. I’m not sure its central conceit--all of these women lived in the same neighbourhood, though not at the same show more time, and Wade is focusing on each one’s time there, her feelings about her place in the world as a woman, and her relationship with London--completely comes together. Perhaps the scope is too ambitious, but at the same time, you could sometimes see Wade contorting things so that they’ll fit. I found the parallels she drew kind of a stretch at times,even while I was appreciating her profound appreciation for trailblazing women.

Still, the most frustrating thing about the book was that I wanted more about these women’s lives before/after Mecklenburg Square. Honestly, I would have preferred if she’d written five full biographies (they could even be on the short side!) and called the the Mecklenburg Square Quintet or something like that. Choosing to focus just on their lives when they lived in a particular area (and most of them lived there for only a few years or even less) meant that so much gets left out.

That need can be filled by reading dedicated biographies of each woman (which I intend to do), so another part of me almost wishes that Wade had dedicated less of her book to biographical information and more to the women's inner lives, their feelings about their gender and their relationship to the world, their dreams of a better future--because those are the places where Wade really shines. I know that the biographical stuff is necessary to give context to everything else, but in having to include it, Wade is stuck in a too-much or too-little situation. As five biographies, this book does not satisfy. As an exploration of what it was like to be a talented and ambitious female writer in pre-WWII London, it does a much better job and yet I wanted more.

I was also struck again and again by the ways that relationships with other women were so central to the survival and professional flourishing of the five. Some of these women had good, positive relationships with men (some of them even had happy marriages!), but all of them were betrayed by men at one point or another. Andall of them have some profound need that is met by women or groups of women: some of them fell in love with women, some of them were mentored by or mentored other women, some of them had the wonderful opportunity to live and work in the environment of women’s colleges, others were rescued by other women or encouraged by other women in a time of great need. This is beautiful to me, and reminds me of the importance of female relationships and solidarity.

The book gave me loads to think about and I enjoyed it all. There are so many people and things that I was tantalizingly introduced to in this book, and now I want to research and find out more about them all. I would definitely recommend the book to anyone interested in women's history, female writers, pre-WWII London, and interesting people in general. The wonderful things about this book (and there are many) are what make my conflicted feelings so frustrating: this book is so close to being truly great. show less

A collective biography of five women—writers H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Dorothy Sayers and Virginia Woolf, and academics Jane Harrison and Eileen Power—who all lived in in London in a neighbourhood called Mecklenburgh Square in the first half of the twentieth century. Francesca Wade is clearly very invested in her subjects, but Square Haunting never rose above "fine" for me. It read like Wade had pitched the book on the idea of "five influential women literary figures/thinkers lived in show more unexpectedly close quarters to one another" and felt that she was bound to that idea, even though the strongest thematic resonances between their lives really had little or nothing to do with the square in particular or even London in general. A better editor would have told Wade to start over. show less