Metaphysical Animals

Joyful... These four are enlivening companions... four glorious heroines, confident and curious, focused on the world and not on themselves

Spectator

Irresistible... Highly evocative... Bring[s] to life an important episode in intellectual history, and [has] made me again grateful that I was for a time a contemporary of these unforgettable women

Thomas Nagel, London Review of Books

Lively ... This fascinating work of historico-logico-feminism shows... how women fought their way on to the world stage of philosophy and turned its spotlight away from an analytical desert on to what was really important - moral clarity, wisdom and truth

John Walsh, Sunday Times

The narrative is of four brilliant women finding their voices, opposing received wisdom, and developing an alternative picture of human beings and their place in the world... To read this story is to be reminded...that the life of the mind can be as intense and eventful as friendship itself

Anil Gomes, Guardian

Lively and enlightening... the four heroines of this book were untimely... Metaphysical Animals is a portrait in intellectual courage

Jonathan Derbyshire, Financial Times

Terrific... A joyous story of four clever young women making their way in the world... A group biography that is both gossipy and gripping but also, like the women themselves, profoundly serious. A triumph

Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday

A very entertaining read that manages to turn dry, intellectual gymnastics into a high-stakes spectator sport

Irish Times

Tell[s] a wonderful story of four brilliant women whose audaciously unfashionable thought (as well as their attentive teaching and mentorship) has changed the face of the discipline... A delightful story of love, friendship and eccentricity

Cathy Mason, Literary Review

Metaphysical Animals is terrific; women philosophers on women philosophers. And both Aristotle and Aquinas would have approved of the title

Gertrude Clarke, Catholic Herald

In Metaphysical Animals Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachel Wiseman attempt something that has never been done before... [They] present the story of women and philosophy in the war and post-war years, a story located in the cloisters of Oxford but also stretching out into dwelling places with prams in the hall

Josephine Fenton, Irish Examiner

The heart of this book resides in the friendship among the four women and the ways they supported and influenced one another... The biographical material in Metaphysical Animals is evocative and sparkling, sketching each woman's character with a novelists mastery of detail

Laura Miller, New York Times

A firecracker account of how four female dons in postwar Oxford...rescued moral philosophy from its rut

Daily Telegraph, *50 Best Books of 2022*

An exhilarating read... The book conjures up an extraordinary time when philosophy really mattered

Tablet, *Books of the Year*

Excellent

Bonnie Garmus, Guardian

It is no easy task to get a group biography just right, but the authors succeed in bringing the reader elegantly along their overlapping journeys of discovery and friendship... Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman offer a masterly account of their philosophy and their friendship

Times Literary Supplement