Ethel Smyth (b.1858): Famed for her operas, this trailblazing queer Victorian composer was a larger-than-life socialite, intrepid traveller and committed Suffragette.

Rebecca Clarke (b.1886): This talented violist and Pre-Raphaelite beauty was one of the first women ever hired by a professional orchestra, later celebrated for her modernist experimentation.

Dorothy Howell (b.1898): A prodigy who shot to fame at the 1919 Proms, her reputation as the English Strauss never dented her modesty; on retirement, she tended Elgars grave alone.

Doreen Carwithen (b.1922): One of Britains first woman film composers who scored Elizabeth IIs coronation film, her success hid a 20-year affair with her married composition tutor.

In their time, these women were celebrities. They composed some of the centurys most popular music and pioneered creative careers; but today, they are ghostly presences, surviving only as muses and footnotes to male contemporaries like Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten until now.

Leah Broads magnificent group biography resurrects these forgotten voices, recounting lives of rebellion, heartbreak and ambition, and celebrating their musical masterpieces. Lighting up a panoramic sweep of British history over two World Wars, Quartet revolutionises the canon forever.