A fond, fascinated look at women’s friendship through fiction, diaries, and letters of friends. A highly entertaining, often instructive anthology bursting with every kind of amicable - or inimical - anecdote. Cooke has dug deep and uncovered nuggets of pure gold in every form of writing. This is a delicious book about the great power and strength of real friendship.

Friendship, a timeless subject, has never been more debated, partly due to the internet - the perils of WhatsApp groups, the agony of ghosting - as well as a growing awareness of increasing loneliness in our society. Friendship has become a matter of urgent inquiry for therapists, scientists, and sociologists. We understand its importance more and more, not only as a comfort and a privilege but as vital to our health.

However, it's hard to get inside friendship: its particular intensity and miraculous ease; its tendency to wax and wane; its ability to inspire both delight and despair. This is the territory of novels and poems, diaries and letters, comics and graphic novels - and it is where the innovative and wide-ranging Virago Book of Friendship steps in, bringing together work by more than 100 writers. From Jane Austen to Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf, from Dolly Alderton to Sarah Waters and Meg Wolitzer, it celebrates and investigates friendship between women from first encounters to final goodbyes, from falling out to making up again.

Described as 'a treasure chest' by The Times and 'an uplifting anthology' by Harper's Bazaar, this collection is also noted as 'a fascinating document' by Literary Review and 'an exhilaratingly wide array' by Spectator.