Mo Moulton - The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women

This is an extraordinary book. Vivid and moving, The Mutual Admiration Society makes us think again about howin private as much in publicmodern Britain was made (and remade) through the creative work of 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 and Queer London and professor of cultural history, University of Birmingham

Witty and insightful. Tracking lifelong friendships, Moulton reveals how a community of writers and activists transcended the limitations placed upon women in twentieth-century Britain. Their stories are by turns charming and harrowing, revealing how an understanding of womens intimate lives can illuminate the times in which they lived.

Megan Kate Nelson, author of The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West

Intensely engrossing. Part literary biography, part social history, Mo Moultons eloquent narrative testifies to the transformative power of creative work.

Laura Doan, Disturbing Practices: History, Sexuality, and Womens Experience of Modern War

A deeply affecting group portrait of a pathbreaking set of female friends who attended Oxford at the dawn of the twentieth century. If youre a fan of Mary McCarthys The Group, youll love The Mutual Admiration Society.

Rachel Hope Cleves, professor of history, University of Victoria and author of Charity and Sylvia

Muriel St. Clare Byrne (18951983). Playwright and historian of the Tudor era. Member of the MAS.

Charis Ursula (Barnett) Frankenburg (18921985). Midwife, birth control advocate, expert on parenting, and magistrate. Member of the MAS.

Dorothea Ellen Hanbury Rowe (18921988). Known as D. Rowe. English teacher and founder of the Bournemouth Little Theatre Club. Member of the MAS.

Dorothy Leigh Sayers (18931957). Known as DLS. Detective novelist, advertising copywriter, playwright, essayist, theologian. Member of the MAS.

SUPPORTING CAST

Marjorie Barber (18941976). Known as Bar. Muriel St. Clare Byrnes partner. English teacher and author.

Mary Aeldrin Cullis (18831968). Known as Susan. Muriel St. Clare Byrnes lover. Secretary, resident tutor at Bedford College.

Atherton Fleming (18811950). Known as Mac. Dorothy L. Sayerss husband. Writer and mechanic.

Sydney Frankenburg (18811935). Charis Frankenburgs husband. Director of the family firm and philanthropist.

Muriel Jaeger (born Jagger) (18921969). Known as Jim. Novelist, essayist, playwright. Member of the MAS.

Catherine (Godfrey) Mansfield (18931977?). Known as Tony. Writer. Member of the MAS.

Amphilis Throckmorton Middlemore (18911931). Lecturer in English. Member of the MAS.

I T BEGAN IN A QUIET sort of way, over hot cocoa and toasted marshmallows in a student room at Somerville College, Oxford. One evening in November 1912, some new friends, all first-year students, gathered to read aloud our literary efforts and to receive and deliver criticism. They brought stories, poems, essays, plays, and fables, and they received far more than merely criticism. In the firelight, over economical treats, they created a space in which they could grow beyond the limitations of Edwardian girlhood and become complex, creative adults with a radically capacious notion of what it might mean to be both human and female.

The group was named by its best-known member, Dorothy L. Sayers, who would go on to be a famous detective novelist and popular theologian. Lets call ourselves the Mutual Admiration Society, she suggested, because thats what people will call us anyway. The name both captures the spirit of the group and misrepresents it. They supported each other boldly and emphatically: no false modesty or feminine shame here. They were willing to be relentless and did not insist on being liked, crucial qualities for taking advantage of the real but tenuous space they had to work within. But they were the exact opposite of the simple echo chamber of praise that the name could imply, in its pejorative sense. They were critical, and they were at odds. They fell apart and came together again, over the course of decades and remarkable careers that ranged from birth control advocacy to genre fiction, from classrooms to the stage.

Four members of the Mutual Admiration Society (MAS) are at the heart of this story. Dorothy L. Sayers was known to her friends by her initials, DLS. Serious and a little weird, DLS was absorbed in her study of French literature and fascinated by the Middle Ages and religion. She would gain fame in adulthood as the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey, the aristocratic detective who starred in her mystery novels. Later, she would be equally well known for the essays and plays she wrote to expound her particular understanding of Christianity and personal ethics.