Quick Take
- Narration: Hannah Curtis brings warmth and authority to Targoff’s prose, managing the shift between scholarly analysis and intimate biography with real ease.
- Themes: women’s literary history, Renaissance patriarchy, creative persistence under constraint
- Mood: Richly researched and quietly urgent, with the weight of recovered voices
- Verdict: A rewarding listen for anyone interested in literary history and women’s lives, though the chronological structure across four subjects can test your patience.
I was three hours into this one on a gray Tuesday morning, and I found myself genuinely frustrated on behalf of Aemilia Lanyer, a woman who published the first book of original poetry by a woman in the seventeenth century and whose name I had never once encountered in years of studying the same period. That frustration is, I think, exactly what Ramie Targoff intended. Shakespeare’s Sisters is a work of historical recovery, and it carries the urgency of someone who has spent years in the archive and cannot believe these women are still this obscure.
Targoff profiles four writers working in Shakespeare’s England: Mary Sidney, accomplished poet and sister of Sir Philip Sidney; Aemilia Lanyer, whose feminist take on the crucifixion was genuinely radical; Elizabeth Cary, who published the first original play by a woman; and Anne Clifford, a diarist who fought for decades to reclaim land stripped from her by patriarchal inheritance law. Each of these women wrote against enormous resistance, and Targoff documents that resistance with both scholarly precision and narrative empathy. Hannah Curtis’s narration is a genuine asset, she handles the shifts between intimate character portraits and broader historical context without losing either register.
Our Take on Shakespeare’s Sisters
What Targoff does particularly well is situate these four women not as exceptional freaks of talent but as participants in a literary culture that consistently closed its doors against them. The detail about Elizabeth Cary’s husband literally removing her access to credit to prevent her from buying books, and her continuing to write anyway, lands with a specific, clarifying weight that makes the broader argument about systemic exclusion feel concrete rather than abstract. This is history that earns its feminist framing by showing the actual mechanisms of suppression, not merely asserting them.
The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice designation is deserved. Targoff writes with the fluency of a scholar who has lived with this material long enough to make it feel inevitable, and the Boston Globe’s recognition of it as a best book of the year reflects genuine merit rather than fashionable subject matter. There is a real argument here about how literary canons are made, and Targoff makes it without sacrificing the individual texture of each woman’s life.
Why Listen to Shakespeare’s Sisters
The audio format works particularly well for the biographical passages, where Curtis’s narration brings genuine emotional presence to moments like Anne Clifford’s long legal battle or Lanyer’s singular act of publication. At nearly twelve hours, the book has enough space to give each of the four women substantial room, and the listening experience rewards patience. A reviewer who described the information itself as "gold" despite some reservations about organization was responding to the sheer density of things learned, this is the kind of book that changes what you think you know about the period.
What to Watch For in Shakespeare’s Sisters
The book’s organizational approach is its most debated quality, and the audio format amplifies the challenge. Rather than telling each woman’s story start to finish, Targoff structures the book chronologically across all four subjects simultaneously, moving between them as their lives intersect with the same historical moments. In print, you can flip back to remind yourself who is who. In audio, the switching can be disorienting if you are not already familiar with at least some of the names. One reviewer described it as "mercilessly confusing" for listeners new to most of the figures, which is an honest assessment. Come in knowing the basic outlines of at least one or two of these women and the structure will feel more coherent.
Who Should Listen to Shakespeare’s Sisters
Readers with an existing interest in Renaissance literature, women’s history, or the mechanics of literary canon formation will find this deeply satisfying. Listeners who pick up Jodi Picoult’s By Any Other Name, a novel that fictionalizes Aemilia Lanyer as possibly the real author of Shakespeare’s plays, will find Targoff’s scholarship a compelling companion piece. Those who want a straightforward biography of a single figure may find the rotating structure frustrating. Come with patience and a willingness to track four distinct voices.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you need prior knowledge of Renaissance literature to follow Shakespeare’s Sisters?
A general familiarity with the period helps, particularly for the chronological structure that weaves all four women’s stories together. If you go in knowing nothing about Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary, or Anne Clifford, allow time to settle into the rotating narrative before it clicks.
How does Hannah Curtis handle the balance between scholarly argument and personal biography?
Curtis is a strong fit for the material. She brings warmth to the biographical passages without overstating the emotion, and maintains the clarity needed for Targoff’s more analytical sections. The transition between registers feels natural throughout.
Is the chronological-across-four-subjects structure a significant problem in audio?
It is the book’s main listener challenge. Several reviewers flagged it as confusing, particularly for those new to most of the subjects. The audio format removes the ability to flip back and re-orient yourself. If you find yourself losing track, brief chapter summaries in the Audible chapter list can help you stay grounded.
How does this compare to Jodi Picoult’s fictional treatment of Aemilia Lanyer in By Any Other Name?
Targoff’s book is rigorously non-fictional and academic in its sourcing, while Picoult takes a speculative dual-timeline approach. Several reviewers came to Shakespeare’s Sisters directly from By Any Other Name and found the two worked well in conversation, with Targoff providing the historical scaffold that Picoult fictionalizes.
