在这场以**的男性艺术家为特色的前卫运动中，年轻、雄心勃勃的女性意味着什么，男艺术家的教育、哲学和文学背景往往与他们年轻一些的情人和同伴截然不同。《好斗的缪斯》记录了在这样的背景下，年轻、有抱负的女性意味着什么。

惠特尼•查德威克聚焦于20世纪30年代、40年代和50年代，描绘了超现实主义艺术家之中五段紧张的、影响深远的女性友谊，展示了超现实主义和战争、失去和创伤的经历如何影响了女性个体从深受喜爱的缪斯到成熟的艺术家的转变。
An elegantly written exploration of the intense, complex and far-reaching female friendships among the surrealists

The Militant Muse documents what it meant to be young, ambitious and female in the context of an avant-

garde movement defined by celebrated men whose educational, philosophical and literary backgrounds were often quite different from those of their younger lovers and companions.

Focusing on the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, Whitney Chadwick charts five intense, far-reaching female friendships among the surrealists to show how surrealism and the experiences of war, loss and trauma shaped individual women’s transitions from beloved muses to mature artists. Her vivid account includes the fascinating story of Claude Cahun and Suzanne Malherbe’s subversive activities in occupied Jersey, as well as the experiences of Lee Miller and Valentine Penrose at the frontline. The book draws on personal correspondence between the women, including the extraordinary letters between Leonora Carrington and Leonor Fini following the imprisonment of Carrington’s lover Max Ernst, and the letter Frida Kahlo shared with her friend and lover Jacqueline Lamba years after it was written in the 1930s during a difficult stay in Paris.