It seemed intriguing, but it just couldn't hold my attention.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Knopf through NetGalley. All opinions expressed are my own.

Shakespeare's Sisters is a fascinating journey through the lives of women in the Renaissance period, where women were considered men's property and really., unless men mentioned the women, you didn't really know much about them. This is an in depth journey from Queen Elizabeth Cary to Mary Sidney, from Aemelia Lanyer to Anne Clifford, who were from different tiers of society and yet, kept interesting records of not only their personal diaries, but also contributions to the literacy world, both known and unknown in their time, but becoming more known in ours. Fascinating details of each of these women are investigated and written down so that they come alive for us today. Very well done and highly recommended!
*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This review is my own opinion*

I want to thank Netgalley and Knof Publishing for a copy of this book.

Brief Summary: A nonfiction work examining the biographies and literary contributions of four Renaissance women: Mary Sidney (Countess of Pembroke), Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary (Viscountess Falkland), and Anne Clifford (Baroness Clifford; Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery). These women's lives are interwoven throughout the book as their lives were and highlight the influence these women had on each other works as well as literature at large.

Thoughts: This book starts a little slow as Targoff does a thorough job discussing the entirety of each of these women's lives including discussing their childhoods, socioeconomic status, and relationships. However, around chapter 3 my interest in the book increased because the women began to have greater agency within their own lives.

Throughout the book which of the women I found the most fascinating continued to change with the more information that I learned about each one of them. I think that this speaks volumes about both the subjects of the books and Targoff's writing style. By interweaving the narratives events in time are being kept in chronological order from the reign of Elizabeth I to the Restoration Period. It also allowed Targoff to highlight how each of these women knew and were related to one another. For example, Anne Clifford married for the second time to Mary Sidney's son and Aemilia Lanyer appears to have tutored Anne for a time during her youth. While Anne and Elizabeth moved in the same court circles.

I also really enjoyed how Targoff also highlighted and integrated these women's connections to Anna of Denmark (Queen Consort to James VI and I) and Henrietta Maria (Queen Consort to Charles I). It was particularly interesting to learn about Queen Anna's interest in Anne's court case the advice she gave Anne which helped her hold her ground in the face of pressure from the men around her or how Henrietta Maria aided Elizabeth with religious matters.

Balancing the discussion of world events and biographical information can be a difficult task especially when information is not as readily available for the subject, but Targoff does an excellent job. Particularly with Aemilia who is the least sociologically advantaged of the women discussed throughout this book. I appreciate the archival work that Targoff had to conduct to find her in the historical record later in her life and the later court cases were very interesting.

I think that this is a great book for anyone interested in learning about women-centred history, particularly those who contributed to Renaissance literature I would recommend this book. This book is an excellent combination of literary contribution, biography, and history.

Content Warnings
Graphically described: Chronic illness, Child death, Toxic relationship, Religious bigotry, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Xenophobia, War, Blood, Classism, Confinement, Death, Death of a parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Infidelity, Sexism, Pregnancy, and Misogyny

Moderately described: Mental illness

Minor description: Animal death, Vomit, and Suicide

Shakespeare's Sisters
By Ramie Targoff

During the English Renaissance – the Elizabethan era – literature created by men such as Marlowe, Shakespeare and others was thriving. Yet little has ever been introduced to us about the successful women writers of the period.

Targoff sets out here to introduce us to four women who, in spite of the limitations of social mores of the times, were obviously well educated (perhaps auto-didacts) and successful writers in a time when educating women was frowned upon.

The four women were Mary Sydney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary, and Anne Clifford. These four women represent a cross-section of English society: the aristocracy; the bourgeoisie; the immigrants who came to England as court entertainers. While each of these women had husbands and children and households to run, they all managed to find the time and places to continue their writings. They wrote translations from many languages into English; poetry, and plays. They were prolific in their writings and made a major contribution to the literature of the period.

Targoff opens a window here and shows the reader a much fuller picture of English creativity at the time. By introducing the women's perspective, Targoff has given us the ability to truly see the English Renaissance as a whole. This is an eye-opening book.

Thank you Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf for allowing me to read and review Shakespeare's Sisters How Women Wrote the Renaissance on NetGalley.

Published: 03/12/24

Stars: 4

My attention wavered. With that said, I'm not a super fan of the Renaissance; I do enjoy learning and trivia. The beautiful cover started my trip back to Shakespeare's day.

At age 13 you were a woman? Well, the girls married,were abused, uneducated and all with their father's blessings. Shakespeare's Sisters How Women Wrote the Renaissance is full of the second class treatment of women and children. While reading I could see parallels to today's world and it saddened me, forcing my brain to flip ahead.

This is nicely written and full of facts that often blurred my vision.

I would gift this in a basket with a bottle and cheese.

This book is a fantastic exploration of four women, contemporary to Shakespeare and who made great literary contributions with almost none recognition from the public, then and now. They are known and study in the academic world, but most of us never even heard about them and their work. They are Mary Sidney, a poet. Amelia Lanyer who wrote a feminist version of the crucifixion , Elizabet Carey, the first woman to publish a play and Anne Clifford, a diarist. The author unveils these impressive women and allows us t a glimpse of part of their works and personal stories. It can be too detailed for moments so it took me longer to read it than would normally take me a book of less than 350 pages, but it is written in a very enjoyable way.

Shakespeare's Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance by Ramie Targoff is a brilliant insight into the lives of four women who broke the glass doors in their own right. In a world where women were considered property of men, these women used whatever freedom they had to write poems, plays, and diaries.

This book goes into every detail of the lives of these women, starting with the coronation of Elizabeth I. It was a fascinating read, especially since I had never heard of Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary, or Anne Clifford. It is definitely a detailed and fact heavy book, so give yourself ample time to read.

It's a perfect book for the Women's History Book. Thank you, Knopf, Vintage, Pantheon, and Anchor, for this book.

"Shakespear's Sisters" does not mean Shakespear's actual family, but we could say sisters in spirit, in other words, woman writers roughly of the same period. This engagingly written, at times vivid and image-rich academic work rewarded slow reading. Absolutely solid with primary source grounding and quotations, the book examines the lives and work of four women, and their impact on the evolving scene of English literature.

It's especially interesting to see these various ways the modern novel was beginning to bud. Fiction of course has been around for a long time. Chaucer being a fine example. But the evolution, particularly with respect to the twists and turns of English history--the puritan era--is an absorbing subject in itself.

It's all there: early publicity (coffee houses, broadsides) plays, women writing plays, fictional autobiography, education of women, translating across languages, balancing the inner life of the writer with that of a woman of the times, and her obligations. Targoff's book is well worth having in hardback, so that one can reference its stellar notes.

The title caught my attention but actually reading it did not. Unfortunate but true. It came across as dry reading, with a lot of quotes to provide context. But they seem rather to overwhelm the text, to the point of distraction. I wish I could have liked it, but I didn't.

Thanks to NetGalley for access to this advanced copy, which I voluntarily reviewed.

In A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN, Virginia Woolf wrote that if Shakespeare had a sister, she wouldn’t have been able to pursue writing. Instead, she would’ve been trapped by society’s expectations and eventually driven mad.

With all due respect to Woolf, Ramie Targoff and her fascinating nonfiction work sheds light on the real women in Renaissance England who DID pursue writing despite the limitations of their patriarchal society.

Tariff brings to light the lives of four Renaissance women (including the first woman in England to publish original poetry, the first woman to publish an original play, and even more trailblazers) who have been passed over on the historical record. They lived and wrote despite (and sometimes because of) harsh patriarchal norms, personal losses, national conflict, and religious discord.

For the most part, their writerly spirits were sustained by personal wealth and class privilege. It also begs the question… How many other female writers across time have been lost to history due to their gender AND class?

I was completely fascinated by SHAKESPEARE’S SISTERS and it’s inspired me to view the Renaissance in an entirely different light. I had never heard of any of these women before, but their stories deserve attention, space, and study. (They also have more plot twists than most novels!) Thankfully, this book is around to create a fuller (and deliciously richer) perspective on this era and I HIGHLY recommend it!

I’ll leave you with the author’s final words on the subject which have inspired me as both a book lover and an aspiring female historian: “We can hear their words and learn their lessons, and the more of these voices we can uncover, the richer our own history becomes. The future of the past is full of women.”

(*Please note this is from an ARC and the final version is subject to change.) Thank you to the publishers for an early copy!

This book invites readers to journey from Queen Elizabeth’s lavish coronation to the lives of four remarkable women writers in a time when women lacked legal rights. While Mary Sidney is relatively well-known, Aemilia Lanyer, the first woman to publish original poetry in the seventeenth century, remains obscure. Elizabeth Cary’s groundbreaking play and Anne Clifford’s defiant diary showcase their resilience against patriarchy. Balancing familial duties and artistic pursuits, these women defied societal norms and carved out literary spaces where none existed before.

This book is fascinating, well-researched, and beautifully written. It lacks a narrative arc, so it feels like a recitation of facts more than a story. The text is dense, without breaks to allow readers to gather their thoughts. Context and connections are lacking, which I found disorienting. For instance, I didn’t really understand why the funeral of Elizabeth I was described in so much detail. The material is interesting, but I continually had the sense of “Why are you telling me this?” Hopefully the published version will have better transitions than the ARC.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

I received an electronic ARC from Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor through NetGalley.
Targoff introduces readers to four English female writers from the Renaissance. Each chapter focuses on a different one of the women as they moved through life and established their writing styles. You won't find the works they wrote in this book but you will see their background and history. The challenges they faced make it even more amazing that they were able to create and that at least some of their writings survived. The author provides detailed accounts of each woman's life and how they were connected to the English courts of this timeframe. By studying their lives, readers develop a clearer understanding of the customs and limitations faced. It's a testament to these women that they were able to achieve what they did. The Epilogue refers to several other women writers from this time frame and to the painfully slow process of including them in the canon.
Well worth the read and I'm glad I took time to read and reflect on each chapter before moving forward. Extensive notes are included at the end of the book.

If you're looking for an introduction to the world of Renaissance England through women's eyes and how they worked to make their voices heard through writing- look no further than Shakespeare's Sisters by Ramie Targoff. She takes the long-held belief that Tudor women didn't read, didn't write, and certainly weren't anything but meek and mild wives and daughters and throws it out the window.

Queen Elizabeth might not have been trying to break the glass ceiling for women, but that doesn't mean other women weren't looking for ways to express themselves. Mary Sidney is someone readers might have heard of- at least because her brother was famous. She took that and ran with it, adding translations and poems of her own to published works of his (some that she only recently got credit for!). Aemilia Lanyer was the first woman to publish a book of original poetry in the 17th century, and she did it while worrying about money for her family because she wasn't nobly born! She made it more shocking by writing a feminist take on the crucifixion- including a poem from the point of view of the wife of Pontius Pilate arguing that if he condemned Christ he is basically erasing Eve's original sin and women are no longer the 'lesser sex'. Elizabeth Carey was the first woman to publish an original play, a feminist take on the Jewish princess Mariam. Anne Clifford is probably the first woman diarist who also wrote down her life and her family's history, all while fighting 40 years of legal battles for her inheritance.

Each of these women were ahead of their time in so many ways, determined to live life as they wanted to. This incredibly well-written and well-researched book gives them back their voices and introduces us to women we may not have known before, but will now definitely want to know more about. The book is designed to tell us more about their lives than to be literary analyses, but at the end we get a great chapter on why their writing is so rarely taught, where we can find their books, and other Renaissance women we might want to read.

I absolutely recommend Shakespeare's Sisters to anyone interested in Tudor England and English literature, or the increasing discoveries of women's lives throughout history, some of which are only recently being brought back into the light.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Interesting to read about the women who wrote literature and poetry during the Shakespearean era. Very little was known about these women before now. Well-written.

I have often commented on the fact that there is not enough representation regarding female writers, and this book illustrates that point. Author Ramie Targoff introduces readers to four incredibly gifted, unrecognized women (to me, at least; serious scholars may be well acquainted with them.) Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary, and Anne Clifford were brilliant, talented women living and writing in the shadows of men, glimmering like fireflies amid the darkness of the expectations of their times. They were met with recognition when their work was published, and for some years after, but they have been lost to history, and perhaps would have remained so if not for Ramie Targoff. This is not a book for the casual reader; it is an epic history of some of literature's most accomplished minds, a book meant to be explored and savored. It is a fantastic book; Targoff keeps her readers engaged as she educates them, and I for one was not bored at all despite the length of the book. I have already recommended Shakespeare's Sisters to friends, and encourage anyone interested in women's literature, and literature in general, to read this book.

Lovely informative non fiction story about a female perspective of life during the time of Shakespeare. It was fascinating and insightful and never was dull or dry. Beautifully written and researched

Thank you so much for the ARC in exchange for my honest review, would read anything Targoff writes!

A fascinating book about women in the 16th and 17th centuries, one of my favorite periods to learn about. I love anything Shakespeare related so this was very interesting! With so few women able to have rights or power of any kind in this era, it is nice to read about how they lived in such a difficult period.
Many of these figures I did not know anything about so it was a refreshing read if you enjoy history.

Great read for those interested in some of England female writers from the 17th century. This book explores 4 of those women.
One of the best written nonfiction historical readings I have come across. I found it to be well researched and gave a good glimpse into the lives and barriers these women faced in that time period.

I would recommend this to anyone wanting to know more about female authors and would also recommend to College and High School Honors Literature classes. This book could promote excellent conversations for students.

The end of the book contains additional information regarding further readings of work done by these women.


Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced E-book edition in exchange for my honest review.

This book is set to release March 12, 2024

Women were writing in the renaissance even though history didn’t discover that until recently. Their work was either overlooked or ascribed to a male contemporary. The shear amount of research that went into this volume is amazing and enlightening. The stories of four women in the 1500 and 1600s translating some works and creating original works of poetry, plays, novels, and history is inspiring when considering that women were not normally educated to read and write and limited to what they were allowed to do or own or say. The lineages of the characters and their relationships to each other were confusing since so many families married into each other over the centuries but the information in this book is invaluable.

Thanks to NetGalley and Alfred A Knopf Publishing for the ARC to read and review.

Shakespeare’s Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance by Ramie Targoff tells the stories of Mary Sidney, Amelia Lanyer, Anne Clifford and Elizabeth Cary who were writers of poetry and plays. A nonfiction in depth telling of each lady and her life. On occasion, the details given were too much and bogged down the stories. It was good to hear their stories because women authors did not happen in Renaissance England. Thank you to NetGallery and Knopf for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review.