Square Haunting

Review It is a pleasure to fall into step with the eloquent, elegant Wade as she stamps the streets of literary London. I would give a copy to every young woman graduating from university and wondering who and how to be ... There is much to inspire. ― The Times The women's characters and situations leap off the page, helped by the kind of details - from interior decor to what they wore - that bring prose alive ... It is a measure of their vividness, and the depth of Wade's research, that these figures far outshine TS Eliot, DH Lawrence, Freud and Keynes ... Endlessly interesting, unshowy, tightly argued and large-hearted. ― Guardian In following the lives of these five extraordinary women, Francesca Wade pursues questions about love, community, friendship and intellectual work in times of crisis. A beautiful and deeply moving book. -- Sally Rooney (author of Normal People) Outstanding. I'll be recommending this all year. -- Sarah Bakewell (author of At the Existentialist Cafe) Very readable and enjoyable . . . vividly evoked. -- Margaret Drabble ― New Statesman Francesca Wade takes group biography to a whole new level, exploring not just these five fascinating lives, but also a wider story of female autonomy in the early 20th century in this lucid and enlightening debut. -- Lucy Atkins ― The Sunday Times, 'Best Literary Nonfiction Books of the Year' Francesca Wade's wonderful debut, Square Haunting, tells the stories of five women who forged creative lives for themselves on the edge of Bloomsbury between the wars, among them the detective novelist Dorothy L Sayers and the pioneering classicist Jane Harrison. It's a measured and scrupulous book, but fresh and fierce too. -- Kate Summerscale ― Guardian, 'Best Books of 2020 - picked by our acclaimed guest authors' An eloquent, pellucid, sometimes poignant study of five female intellectuals, each of whom disdained convention to fulfil their potential . [Wade is] interested in ideas, in the great movements of history, and, above all, in the spirit of curiosity and adventure that binds these women together . So moving. ― Observer Enchanting ... Vividly written ... Riveting ... A timely invitation to join our literary foremothers in their rebellious journeys to achieve creative freedom and world harmony. ― New York Times An impressive debut that puts [Wade] firmly on the literary map. ― Sunday Times Admirably researched . . . Wade's flowing style keeps the pages turning; the subject is catnip for lovers of literary biography. ― Irish Times An elegant, meticulously researched evocation of time and place ― Financial Times A compelling study of the quest for creative freedom . . . Wade is an astutely empathetic storyteller who never lets her considerable research get in the way of her elegant writing ― Times Literary Supplement Original and erudite . . . Wade is adept at evoking the gritty texture of the times, taking us seamlessly from the interior lives of her subjects into the world they inhabited and back again . . . Wade distils half a century of social and literary history into these five women's lives with a marvellously light touch. This is biography as fresh and engaging as you are likely to find. ― Spectator Elegant, erudite and absorbing, Square Haunting is a startlingly original debut, and Francesca Wade is a writer to watch. -- Frances Wilson (author of Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey) Product Description A SUNDAY TIMES LITERARY NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (AS CHOSEN BY AUTHORS) **LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE** 'Outstanding. I'll be recommending this all year.' SARAH BAKEWELL 'A beautiful and deeply moving book.' SALLY ROONEY 'I like this London life . . . the street-sauntering and square-haunting.' Virginia Woolf, diary, 1925 Mecklenburgh Square, on the radical fringes of interwar Bloomsbury, was home to activists, experimenters and revolutionaries; among