Burn This Letter

Burn This Letter begins with a compelling mystery: Why did so many letters between Lady Frances and Lady Betty Balfour start with the phrase, 'BURN THIS!'? What were they hiding?

Alike in many ways—political, passionate, argumentative, and deeply intelligent—Frances and Betty became close friends when they became sisters-in-law. However, there was a complication: Frances was in love with Betty's husband. Their unconventional solution was an 'experiment in living', a ménage à quatre. They set up homes on the same street, sharing everything: money, meals, governesses, and husbands.

When Susan Pedersen discovered their amazing cache of letters, she was spellbound.

We tend to view elite women of this era romantically, tracking whom they will marry, but we don't always follow them into their marriages as they struggle to lead consequential lives. Marriage isn't the end of women's lives. It can be, as it was for Frances and Betty, the catalyst to political activism.

Pedersen's book follows this extraordinary friendship as both women seized every freedom afforded to them by the changing times. They left their drawing rooms for the streets and the soapbox, joining the fight for women's suffrage.

This is the untold story of two women—radicals, rivals, sisters—who carved a path together through an elite male world, sharing their ideals, heartbreaks, and most of all, their secrets.