Mutual Admiration Society

Rich and careful . . . [Mutual Admiration Society] excavates the social and emotional context of the lives of four indomitable women with painstaking affection; it is as valuable as it is enjoyable -- Sophie Read * TES * Well-written and fascinating, it's equally successful as a biography and social history -- Jake Kerridge * Sunday Express * A blend of group biography and social history, Mutual Admiration Society tells a quintessentially English story -- Francis Wilson * The Times * An author of detective fiction who also translated Dante. A pioneering historian of everyday life. A beloved teacher who directed amateur theatre. A birth control advocate and purveyor of pregnancy and parenting advice. In this compelling book, Mo Moulton shows how four women with very different ways of expressing their genders and sexualities inspired and supported one another for decades . . . Required reading, not only for Dorothy Sayers aficionados, but for anyone interested in queer lives and in the history of friendship. -- Sharon Marcus, author of The Drama of Celebrity Part literary biography, part social history, Mo Moulton's eloquent narrative testifies to the transformative power of creative work -- Laura Doan, author of Disturbing Practices: History, Sexuality and Women's Experience of Modern War This is an extraordinary book. Vivid and moving, Mutual Admiration Society is a compelling history of the intimacies forged by the remarkable circle of women around Dorothy L. Sayers, and the productive relationship between love and friendship and intellectual and professional labour. It is much more than this, though: as an intimate history of British society and culture in the first decades of the twentieth century, Mutual Admiration Society makes us think again about how - in private as much in public - modern Britain was made (and remade) through the creative work of such women. Beautifully written, animated by a sense of quiet power and amazing ambition, this is essential reading for anyone interested in modern British history -- Matt Houlbrook, author of Prince of Tricksters Deeply researched, beautifully written . . . If you already know and love the work of Dorothy L. Sayers, Moulton will help you understand her better as you read about the novelist in her element; if you don't know Sayers yet, let this gorgeous work - whose intense focus on women, their life-sustaining friendships, and their personal and professional desires echoes the very best of Sayers's novels - be part of your introduction -- Nicole Chung, author of All You Can Ever Know Mo Moulton's Mutual Admiration Society came along at exactly the right time. This lively, rigorous, and surprising history of Dorothy L. Sayers and her circle is a clear-eyed, optimistic look at a particularly critical stage in the evolution of feminism. It offers both a fresh look at the past and real insight into the ways we might collectively shape a better future * Kristen Roupenian, author of Cat Person And Other Stories *