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"Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) was a renowned crime novelist who achieved fame and fortune during a period that historian Mo Moulton calls 'the day after the revolution.' In a time when just as many doors were closed to women as open, Sayers found professional success with her Lord Peter Wimsey novels. Yet she never could have done it without the cohort of remarkable women she met at university -- all of whom would go on to challenge societal norms and fight for equality of opportunity in their own way. In 1912, Dorothy L. Sayers and five friends founded a writing group at Somerville College, Oxford; they called themselves the 'Mutual Admiration Society.' Smart, bold, serious, and funny, these women were also sheltered and chaperoned, barred from receiving degrees despite taking classes and passing exams. But within a few short years, World War I rapidly expanded the rights and opportunities available to women, including the right to vote (1918) and access to the professions (1919). In October 1920, members of the MAS returned to Oxford to receive full degrees. Mutual Admiration Society follows these six women as they navigate the complexities of adulthood, work, intimacy, and sex in Interwar England. Bringing these women to vivid life, Moulton reveals how Dorothy L. Sayers was intimately intertwined with the members of the MAS -- and how, together, they fought their way into modernity"--… (more)
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They met at Oxford, where they were a group of some of the few women to be admitted in that time. At the time, a few women were allowed to attend, but they could not receive degrees. This came later (in 1920); some of the group were given retroactive degrees. Sayers wrote an essay titled “Are Women Human?”, which, it seems, women really weren’t in those days. The MAS was a female equivalent of The Inklings; a university group of writers and scholars with common interests.
This group biography covers the women’s lives from Oxford to their deaths. It’s extremely well researched (the notes and bibliography take up almost 60 pages) and detailed. It’s not fast reading, but I found it fascinating.