Sister Novelists

The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës

By: Devoney Looser

Narrated by: Larissa Thompson

Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

For fans 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.

©2022 Devoney Looser (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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.

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.

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.

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.