Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
May Sinclair
-
Standard Name: Sinclair, May
Birth Name: Mary Amelia St Clair Sinclair
Self-constructed Name: May Sinclair
Styled: May Sinclair
Pseudonym: Julian Sinclair
MS
, a major figure in the development of Modernism, wrote more than two dozen works ranging from novels (twenty-one of them), poetry, and collections of short stories to polemical pamphlets, philosophical treatises, translations, biography and a personal account of war experience. She was also a well-regarded book reviewer and literary critic. During her last decades she published nothing, and almost dropped from literary consciousness.
Focusing particularly on plot and dialogue (she was praised especially for her skill with the latter), her novels consider sexual and social relationships from an anti-romantic, feminist perspective.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
282
Johnson, George M., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 197. Gale Research.
197: 181
Writing in the English...
Textual Features
Rebecca West
Between March 1915 and August 1917, West wrote reviews for the Daily News, under the editorship of A. G. Gardiner
. She often reviewed books on the subject of women; these allowed her to...
CH
published a controversial article, Man, in The English Review; it provoked a response from May Sinclair
in the July issue of the journal.
Whitelaw, Lis. The Life and Rebellious Times of Cicely Hamilton. Women’s Press.
121-2
Publishing
Dora Marsden
Plans were afoot to relaunch The Freewoman shortly after it collapsed in its first form. When Marsden retreated to Southport for health reasons, Rebecca West
acted as liaison between her and supporters in the Freewoman Discussion Circle
Publishing
Charlotte Mew
May Sinclair
helped to introduce CM
's work to Ezra Pound
, who received it enthusiastically and helped to get it published here. The Egoist unfortunately did not pay.
Raitt, Suzanne. May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian. Clarendon Press.
DR
was in her time, and remains, a singular novelist. Her fiction has never conformed to accepted categories, and still challenges literary critics. Her major work, the series of novels comprising Pilgrimage, is now...
politics
Radclyffe Hall
With the support of Violet Hunt
and May Sinclair
, RH
was elected a member of the writers' organisation PEN
.
Cline, Sally. Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John. John Murray.
173
politics
Violet Hunt
Along with fellow author and suffragist May Sinclair
, VH
spent three days collecting funds for the WSPU
at High Street Kensington underground station.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
134
Hunt, Violet. I Have This to Say. Boni and Liveright.
51-2
Occupation
Emmuska, Baroness Orczy
During the First World War EBO
did her bit by giving informal lectures, first on the motives and issues of the Napoleonic Wars, then on English literature. She also sat on a committee of the...
Occupation
Constance Smedley
In her capacity as European representative for the American Everybody's Magazine (edited by John O'Hara Cosgrave
), CS
set out to woo various authors including Kenneth Grahame
. She writes that she was successful in...
Literary responses
Rose Allatini
Meanwhile the Times Literary Supplement saw the novel as well-written—evidently the work of a woman. The reviewer judged that as a frank and sympathetic study of certain types of mind and character, it is of...
Literary responses
Violet Hunt
Her colleague and lifelong friend May Sinclair
wrote an article for the English Review in 1922 praising The Novels of Violet Hunt.
Johnson, George M., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 197. Gale Research.
197: 183
Literary responses
Stella Benson
Forty-six years after Benson's death, Naomi Mitchison
acknowledged that her work had ceased being read, that her fantasy was misunderstood as whimsy. She felt, however, that in 1979 a revival was due.
Mitchison, Naomi. You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920-1940. Gollancz.
127
It is...
Literary responses
Violet Hunt
Boots
the chemist, which operated circulating libraries in its shops, refused to the stock this novel (as it already refused VH
's Sooner or Later) because of its alleged sensationalism.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
146-7
Secor, Marie. “Violet Hunt, Novelist: A Reintroduction”. English Literature in Transition, Vol.
