Mothers of the Mind

Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie, and Sylvia Plath are three of our most famous authors, for the first time this book tells the story of the remarkable mothers, who shaped them. Julia Stephen, Clara Miller, and Aurelia Plath were fascinating women in their own rights, and their relationships with their daughters were exceptional; they profoundly influenced the writers' lives, literature, and attitude to feminism. This book charts the complex, often contradictory, bond between these mothers and daughters. Too often in the past Virginia, Agatha and Sylvia have been defined by their lovers, this book redresses the balance by focussing on their formative affinity with their mothers. Drawing on previously unpublished original sources from archives around the world and talking to family and friends of the women this book offers a new perspective on these iconic authors.

Auteur

RACHEL TRETHEWEY read History at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where she won the Philip Geddes Prize for student journalism. During her journalistic career she wrote features for the Daily Mail and Daily Express, and subsequently reviewed history books for The Independent. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has previously written The Churchill Girls (2021) about Winston's daughters. She lives in Devon.