Sister Novelists
The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $30.54
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Larissa Thompson
-
By:
-
Devoney Looser
About this listen
Bloomsbury presents Sister Novelists by Devoney Looser, read by Larissa Thompson.
Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2023
For listeners of Prairie Fires and The Peabody Sisters, a fascinating, insightful biography of the most famous sister novelists before the Brontës.
Before the Brontë sisters picked up their pens, or Jane Austen’s heroines Elizabeth and Jane Bennet became household names, the literary world was celebrating a different pair of sisters: Jane and Anna Maria Porter. The Porters—exact contemporaries of Jane Austen—were brilliant, attractive, self-made single women of polite reputation who between them published 26 books and achieved global fame. They socialized among the rich and famous, tried to hide their family’s considerable debt, and fell dramatically in and out of love. Their moving letters to each other confess every detail. Because the celebrity sisters expected their renown to live on, they preserved their papers, and the secrets they contained, for any biographers to come.
But history hasn’t been kind to the Porters. Credit for their literary invention was given to their childhood friend, Sir Walter Scott, who never publicly acknowledged the sisters’ works as his inspiration. With Scott’s more prolific publication and even greater fame, the Porter sisters gradually fell from the pinnacle of celebrity to eventual obscurity. Now, Professor Devoney Looser, a Guggenheim fellow in English Literature, sets out to re-introduce the world to the authors who cleared the way for Austen, Mary Shelley, and the Brontë sisters. Capturing the Porter sisters’ incredible rise, from when Anna Maria published her first book at age 14 in 1793, through to Jane’s fall from the pinnacle of fame in the Victorian era, and then to the auctioning off for a pittance of the family’s massive archive, Sister Novelists is a groundbreaking and enthralling biography of two pioneering geniuses in historical fiction.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Agatha Christie
- An Elusive Woman
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Lucy Worsley
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to rarely seen personal letters and papers, Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was—truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
-
-
A delight and a revelation
- By theenglishmajor on 12-02-22
By: Lucy Worsley
-
Belinda
- By: Maria Edgeworth
- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
- Length: 18 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published in 1801, Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda is an absorbing novel that mirrors social and domestic life among the English gentry. In her pursuit of a suitable marriage, Belinda encounters an array of characters including the dazzling socialite Lady Delacourt, the feminist Harriet Freke, the wealthy and handsome West Indian Mr Vincent and the impulsive Clarence Hervey.
-
-
Editor Was Needed
- By DEJ on 06-18-24
By: Maria Edgeworth
-
East Lynne
- By: Ellen Wood
- Narrated by: Rachel Atkins
- Length: 23 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lady Isabel Carlyle leaves her husband and children for the aristocratic Francis Levison, who, as it turns out, has no intention of marrying her. Having been disfigured in a train accident, the unrecognizable Isabel then takes up the position of governess to her own children in the Carlyle household, with tragic consequences.
-
-
Glad I stuck with it
- By Simon Brodie on 02-05-24
By: Ellen Wood
-
Shirley
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 23 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in a chaotic time in England, during the height of the Napoleonic Wars, Caroline Helstone's world is turned upside down when she meets the vivacious Shirley Keeldar. Shirley becomes a beacon of light for Caroline as the two become close friends. However, Caroline is soon shocked to discover that Shirley has won the affections of Robert Moore, the impoverished mill owner whom she loves. Fully representative of Yorkshire life at the time, Brontë's second novel is completely gripping, unrelenting and utterly wrenching in its portrayal.
-
-
Social Romance
- By Montcalm on 06-03-15
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
Villette
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 22 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as Charlotte Brontë’s “finest novel” by Virginia Woolf, Villette is the timeless semi-autobiographical tale of Lucy Snowe. Left with no family and no money, Lucy goes against her own timid nature and travels to the small city of Villette, France, where she becomes a school teacher in Madame Beck’s school for girls. During her stay, she falls in love—twice—and discovers an independent, inner strength rarely seen in women of her time.
-
-
The Divine Ms. Porter delivers as always
- By peachnmario on 03-17-15
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
Jane Austen at Home
- A Biography
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Ruth Redman
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Take a trip back to Jane Austen's world and the many places she lived as historian Lucy Worsley visits Austen's childhood home, her schools, her holiday accommodations, the houses - both grand and small - of the relations upon whom she was dependent, and the home she shared with her mother and sister towards the end of her life.
-
-
As a Devoted Janeite - I loved this book!
- By Dorothy on 07-17-17
By: Lucy Worsley
-
Agatha Christie
- An Elusive Woman
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Lucy Worsley
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to rarely seen personal letters and papers, Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was—truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
-
-
A delight and a revelation
- By theenglishmajor on 12-02-22
By: Lucy Worsley
-
Belinda
- By: Maria Edgeworth
- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
- Length: 18 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published in 1801, Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda is an absorbing novel that mirrors social and domestic life among the English gentry. In her pursuit of a suitable marriage, Belinda encounters an array of characters including the dazzling socialite Lady Delacourt, the feminist Harriet Freke, the wealthy and handsome West Indian Mr Vincent and the impulsive Clarence Hervey.
-
-
Editor Was Needed
- By DEJ on 06-18-24
By: Maria Edgeworth
-
East Lynne
- By: Ellen Wood
- Narrated by: Rachel Atkins
- Length: 23 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lady Isabel Carlyle leaves her husband and children for the aristocratic Francis Levison, who, as it turns out, has no intention of marrying her. Having been disfigured in a train accident, the unrecognizable Isabel then takes up the position of governess to her own children in the Carlyle household, with tragic consequences.
-
-
Glad I stuck with it
- By Simon Brodie on 02-05-24
By: Ellen Wood
-
Shirley
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 23 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in a chaotic time in England, during the height of the Napoleonic Wars, Caroline Helstone's world is turned upside down when she meets the vivacious Shirley Keeldar. Shirley becomes a beacon of light for Caroline as the two become close friends. However, Caroline is soon shocked to discover that Shirley has won the affections of Robert Moore, the impoverished mill owner whom she loves. Fully representative of Yorkshire life at the time, Brontë's second novel is completely gripping, unrelenting and utterly wrenching in its portrayal.
-
-
Social Romance
- By Montcalm on 06-03-15
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
Villette
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 22 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as Charlotte Brontë’s “finest novel” by Virginia Woolf, Villette is the timeless semi-autobiographical tale of Lucy Snowe. Left with no family and no money, Lucy goes against her own timid nature and travels to the small city of Villette, France, where she becomes a school teacher in Madame Beck’s school for girls. During her stay, she falls in love—twice—and discovers an independent, inner strength rarely seen in women of her time.
-
-
The Divine Ms. Porter delivers as always
- By peachnmario on 03-17-15
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
Jane Austen at Home
- A Biography
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Ruth Redman
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Take a trip back to Jane Austen's world and the many places she lived as historian Lucy Worsley visits Austen's childhood home, her schools, her holiday accommodations, the houses - both grand and small - of the relations upon whom she was dependent, and the home she shared with her mother and sister towards the end of her life.
-
-
As a Devoted Janeite - I loved this book!
- By Dorothy on 07-17-17
By: Lucy Worsley
-
How the South Won the Civil War
- Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," Heather Cox Richardson argues in this provocative work that democracy's blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system that had sustained the defeated South moved westward and there established a foothold. It was a natural fit. Settlers from the East had for decades been pushing into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies....
-
-
Disappointing book that wasted such potential.
- By Amazon Customer on 08-07-21
-
Emma [Naxos Edition]
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of Jane Austen's most popular novels. Arrogant, self-willed, and egotistical, Emma is her most unusual heroine.
-
-
Wonderful listen
- By A. Bloom on 08-07-08
By: Jane Austen
-
The Real Jane Austen
- A Life in Small Things
- By: Paula Byrne
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things offers a startlingly original look at the revered writer through a variety of key moments, scenes, and objects in her life and work. Going beyond previous traditional biographies which have traced Austen's daily life from Steventon to Bath to Chawton to Winchester, Paula Byrne's portrait - organized thematically and drawn from the most up-to-date scholarship and unexplored sources - explores the lives of Austen's extended family, friends, and acquaintances.
-
-
I keep re-listening to it!
- By Frances K. Harville on 06-10-20
By: Paula Byrne
-
Middlemarch
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 35 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.
-
-
Best Audible book ever
- By Molly-o on 12-25-11
By: George Eliot
-
Godmersham Park
- A Novel of the Austen Family
- By: Gill Hornby
- Narrated by: Bessie Carter
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On January 21, 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At thirty-one years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. Her mother has died, and she has nowhere else to go. Anne is left with no choice. For her new charge—twelve-year-old Fanny Austen—Anne’s arrival is all novelty and excitement.
-
-
Terrible disappointment
- By Mary Elizabeth Herr on 05-07-24
By: Gill Hornby
-
Babel
- Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
- By: R. F. Kuang
- Narrated by: Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Billie Fulford-Brown
- Length: 21 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
-
-
The novel language lovers have been waiting for
- By LisaLee on 09-06-22
By: R. F. Kuang
-
Camilla
- A Picture of Youth
- By: Fanny Burney
- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
- Length: 37 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Among Jane Austen's favorite novels, and a key work in the rise of Romanticism, Camilla follows the story of three young women, from childhood to young adulthood, and their pursuit of matrimony. Kind but naive Camilla is in love with Edgar Mandlebert, a handsome and noble young man. Intelligent Eugenia, destined to inherit her uncle's great wealth, is plagued with misfortune as she is left disfigured by smallpox and has men court her for financial gain only. Meanwhile their cousin, beautiful but selfish Indiana, never finds a fortune for her good looks.
-
-
Perfection!
- By Jen42 on 11-19-20
By: Fanny Burney
-
Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.
-
-
One Tough Read Perfectly Delivered
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Woman They Could Not Silence
- One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear
- By: Kate Moore
- Narrated by: Kate Moore
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of 21 years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened - by Elizabeth’s intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.
-
-
Everyone should read this!
- By Lana S on 12-22-21
By: Kate Moore
-
Evelina
- By: Frances Burney
- Narrated by: Dame Judi Dench, Finty Williams, Geoffrey Palmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fanny Burney's wickedly funny satire follows the trials and romantic adventures of the young and beautiful Evelina as she tries to make her way through 18th-century Britain handicapped by her three great problems: being poor, being illegitimate - and being a girl. Evelina was a raging best seller when it was first published in 1778 and is widely credited with being the first of the great British domestic novels. Burney was a direct influence on her immediate follower, Jane Austen.
-
-
Get This Version!
- By Johanna on 01-10-16
By: Frances Burney
-
Lady Susan
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Harriet Walter, Kim Hicks
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lady Susan was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed. Less known than Austen's six great later novels, it demonstrates the wit and sharp observations of Jane Austen - and is shown at its best in audiobook form, with different actresses presenting real characters as they read their letters.
-
-
Fun and mischevious
- By Amazon Customer on 02-03-05
By: Jane Austen
-
The Time Traveler's Guide to Regency Britain
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: Ian Mortimer
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveler's Guides, Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history—the Regency, or Georgian England. A time of exuberance, thrills, frills, and unchecked bad behavior, it was perhaps the last age of true freedom before the arrival of the stifling world of Victorian morality. At the same time, it was a period of transition. Conveying the sights, sounds, and smells of the Regency period, this is history at its most exciting—the past not as something to be studied, but as lived experience.
-
-
SKIP THIS BOOK
- By Lady Aristotle on 09-05-22
By: Ian Mortimer
Related to this topic
-
Isak Dinesen
- The Life of a Storyteller
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
-
-
over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
By: Judith Thurman
-
Charlotte Brontë
- A Fiery Heart
- By: Claire Harman
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlotte Brontë's life contained all the drama and tragedy of the great Gothic novels it inspired. Like Jane Eyre, she was raised motherless on remote Yorkshire moors and sent away to a brutally strict boarding school at a young age. Charlotte grew up and watched helplessly as, one by one, her five beloved siblings sickened and died; by the end of her short life, she was the only child of the Brontë clan remaining.
-
-
Clear-Eyed Bio of Literature's Most Elusive Figure
- By wally on 09-02-16
By: Claire Harman
-
Marmee and Louisa
- The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother
- By: Eve LaPlante
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Biographers have consistently credited her father, Bronson Alcott, for Louisa May Alcott's professional success, assuming that this outspoken idealist was the source of her progressive thinking and remarkable independence. But in this riveting dual biography, Eve LaPlante explodes those myths, drawing on unknown and unexplored letters and journals to show that Louisa's "Marmee", Abigail May Alcott, was in fact the intellectual and emotional center of her daughter's world. It was Abigail who urged Louisa to write, who inspired many of her stories, and who gave her the support and courage she needed to pursue her path.
-
-
Hardworking women and the man they supported
- By Chris on 04-26-13
By: Eve LaPlante
-
Georgette Heyer
- Biography of a Bestseller
- By: Jennifer Kloester
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Georgette Heyer remains an enduring international best seller, read and loved by four generations of readers and extolled by today's best-selling authors. Despite her enormous popularity, she never gave an interview or appeared in public. Georgette Heyer wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was 17 in order to amuse her convalescent brother. It was published in 1921 to instant success, and 90 years later it has never been out of print.
-
-
Heyer as a person
- By Jerri C on 06-15-15
-
Romantic Outlaws
- The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley
- By: Charlotte Gordon
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlotte Gordon's new work is a fresh look at the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, who together comprise one of the most illustrious and inspiring mother-daughter pairs in history.
-
-
Tons of info, poor format choice.
- By Gotta Tellya on 02-06-17
By: Charlotte Gordon
-
The Lost Queen
- The Life & Tragedy of the Prince Regent's Daughter
- By: Anne M. Stott
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the only child of the Prince Regent and Caroline of Brunswick, Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796-1817) was the heiress presumptive to the throne. Her parents' marriage had already broken up by the time she was born. She had a difficult childhood and a turbulent adolescence, but she was popular with the public, who looked to her to restore the good name of the monarchy.
-
-
excellent
- By meganajjcec on 10-12-20
By: Anne M. Stott
-
Isak Dinesen
- The Life of a Storyteller
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
-
-
over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
By: Judith Thurman
-
Charlotte Brontë
- A Fiery Heart
- By: Claire Harman
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlotte Brontë's life contained all the drama and tragedy of the great Gothic novels it inspired. Like Jane Eyre, she was raised motherless on remote Yorkshire moors and sent away to a brutally strict boarding school at a young age. Charlotte grew up and watched helplessly as, one by one, her five beloved siblings sickened and died; by the end of her short life, she was the only child of the Brontë clan remaining.
-
-
Clear-Eyed Bio of Literature's Most Elusive Figure
- By wally on 09-02-16
By: Claire Harman
-
Marmee and Louisa
- The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother
- By: Eve LaPlante
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Biographers have consistently credited her father, Bronson Alcott, for Louisa May Alcott's professional success, assuming that this outspoken idealist was the source of her progressive thinking and remarkable independence. But in this riveting dual biography, Eve LaPlante explodes those myths, drawing on unknown and unexplored letters and journals to show that Louisa's "Marmee", Abigail May Alcott, was in fact the intellectual and emotional center of her daughter's world. It was Abigail who urged Louisa to write, who inspired many of her stories, and who gave her the support and courage she needed to pursue her path.
-
-
Hardworking women and the man they supported
- By Chris on 04-26-13
By: Eve LaPlante
-
Georgette Heyer
- Biography of a Bestseller
- By: Jennifer Kloester
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Georgette Heyer remains an enduring international best seller, read and loved by four generations of readers and extolled by today's best-selling authors. Despite her enormous popularity, she never gave an interview or appeared in public. Georgette Heyer wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was 17 in order to amuse her convalescent brother. It was published in 1921 to instant success, and 90 years later it has never been out of print.
-
-
Heyer as a person
- By Jerri C on 06-15-15
-
Romantic Outlaws
- The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley
- By: Charlotte Gordon
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlotte Gordon's new work is a fresh look at the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, who together comprise one of the most illustrious and inspiring mother-daughter pairs in history.
-
-
Tons of info, poor format choice.
- By Gotta Tellya on 02-06-17
By: Charlotte Gordon
-
The Lost Queen
- The Life & Tragedy of the Prince Regent's Daughter
- By: Anne M. Stott
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the only child of the Prince Regent and Caroline of Brunswick, Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796-1817) was the heiress presumptive to the throne. Her parents' marriage had already broken up by the time she was born. She had a difficult childhood and a turbulent adolescence, but she was popular with the public, who looked to her to restore the good name of the monarchy.
-
-
excellent
- By meganajjcec on 10-12-20
By: Anne M. Stott
-
Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know
- By: Colm Toibin
- Narrated by: Colm Toibin
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elegant, profound, and riveting, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers, but also illustrates the surprising ways these men surface in their work. Through these stories of fathers and sons, Tóibín recounts the resistance to English cultural domination, the birth of modern Irish cultural identity, and the extraordinary contributions of these complex and masterful authors.
-
-
Eminently re-readable
- By Ellen-A on 01-02-19
By: Colm Toibin
-
Prince Albert
- The Man Who Saved the Monarchy
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawn from the Royal archives, including Prince Albert’s voluminous correspondence, this brilliant and ambitious book offers fascinating never-before-known details about the man and his time. A superb match of biographer and subject, Prince Albert, at last, gives this important historical figure the reverence and recognition that is long overdue.
-
-
Excellent Bio!
- By Nancy on 04-24-24
By: A. N. Wilson
-
Book of Ages
- The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin
- By: Jill Lepore
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians, a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin' s youngest sister and a history of history itself. Like her brother, Jane Franklin was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator.
-
-
Back story of Ben Franklin
- By Candi Collier on 05-30-14
By: Jill Lepore
-
Proust's Duchess
- How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siecle Paris
- By: Caroline Weber
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 29 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, "transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style."
-
-
Enthralling, entertaining and brilliant
- By Uli Baer on 01-14-19
By: Caroline Weber
-
The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
-
-
Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
-
Eliza Hamilton
- The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton
- By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fans fell in love with Eliza Hamilton - Alexander Hamilton’s devoted wife - in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s phenomenal musical Hamilton. But they don’t know her full story. A strong pioneer woman, a loving sister, a caring mother, and, in her later years, a generous philanthropist, Eliza had many sides - and this fascinating biography brings her multifaceted personality to vivid life.
-
-
Eliza Deserves Better
- By jmn89 on 12-20-19
By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
-
The Man in the Red Coat
- By: Julian Barnes
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker, and man of science with a famously complicated private life....
-
-
Pathetic narration makes this title unbearable
- By Chris Quigg on 02-27-20
By: Julian Barnes
-
Gentleman Jack (Movie Tie-In)
- The Real Anne Lister
- By: Anne Choma, Sally Wainwright
- Narrated by: Eva Pope, Erin Shanager
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anne Lister was extraordinary. Fearless, charismatic, and determined to explore her lesbian sexuality, she forged her own path in a society that had no language to define her. She was a landowner, an industrialist, and a prolific diarist whose output has secured her legacy as one of the most fascinating figures of the 19th century. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister follows Anne from her crumbling ancestral home in Yorkshire to the glittering courts of Denmark as she resolves to put past heartbreak behind her and find herself a wife.
-
-
A true pioneer on many levels
- By Dana on 05-18-19
By: Anne Choma, and others
-
Heiresses
- The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies
- By: Laura Thompson
- Narrated by: Laura Thompson
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heiresses: Surely they are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be envied, with their private jets and Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century a wife’s inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions.
-
-
tough listen and tough to keep track
- By Amazon Customer on 03-29-23
By: Laura Thompson
-
Charity and Sylvia
- By: Rachel Hope Cleves
- Narrated by: Kristin Kalbli
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conventional wisdom holds that same-sex marriage is a purely modern innovation, a concept born of an overtly modern lifestyle that was unheard of in 19th-century America. But as Rachel Hope Cleves demonstrates in this eye-opening book, same-sex marriage is hardly new. Born in 1777, Charity Bryant was raised in Massachusetts. A brilliant and strong-willed woman with a clear attraction for her own sex, Charity found herself banished from her family home at age 20.
-
-
Fascinating story!
- By Chloe Northrop on 06-13-17
-
Philip Roth
- The Biography
- By: Blake Bailey
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 31 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"I don't want you to rehabilitate me," Philip Roth said to his only authorized biographer, Blake Bailey. "Just make me interesting." Granted complete independence and access, Bailey spent almost 10 years poring over Roth's personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and listening to Roth's own breathtakingly candid confessions. Tracing Roth's path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roth's engagement with nearly every aspect of postwar American culture.
-
-
moved
- By Michael on 08-18-21
By: Blake Bailey
-
Emily Post
- Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners
- By: Laura Claridge
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 18 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the excesses of the late 19th-century Gilded Age, through the horrors of World War I, to the transformations of the Roaring 20s that gave birth to her magisterial Etiquette, Emily Post unfailingly took the measure of her era. A Baltimore blue blood with a populist heart, she helped the masses live the American dream with her hugely popular book, which has been continuously in print for over 85 years.
-
-
Typical for Emily Post
- By Stephanie on 01-07-19
By: Laura Claridge
What listeners say about Sister Novelists
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jasea
- 02-09-23
Fantastic history
I consider myself fairly well-versed in English literature, yet I had never heard of the Porter sisters. What fascinating, brilliant and admirable women! This book not only introduces them to the reader, it also provides an extensive and detailed portrait of the world in which they lived.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Krista
- 03-03-24
Founders of historical fiction
Excellent presentation of overlooked female writers and their contributions to literature. Example of how male dominated society burdened the creative spirit.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kriss McL
- 11-04-22
Rollicking good
Such an impressive amount of research - and then to turn it into such a compelling biography!
Recommended for anyone who loves a good story, not just for readers who love the story behind the stories.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- St.Clair
- 04-27-23
Boring
As a lover of Austen literature, and the women stories from history, this was a disappointment. I found the reader did not hold my attention, both in voice and intonation. And the story itself. I found myself zoning out as not even interested in listening, shut it off at chapter 2.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!