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.
They show increasing awareness of time and time's passing: in this volume KT
expresses regret for having missed, by her absence in England, the last moments of some of her Irish friends' lives. Nearly all...
Textual Features
Violet Hunt
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...
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
Cicely Hamilton
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
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
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...
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...
Literary responses
Emily Brontë
Since the early criticism which took its lead from Charlotte's biographical portrait, a biographical and hagiographic industry has arisen around all three Brontë sisters and their home in Haworth. A. Mary F. Robinson
published...
Literary responses
Dorothy Richardson
In a review of DR
's first three novels, published in the Little Review and The Egoist in April 1918, May Sinclair
used the label stream of consciousness to describe Richardson's technique. Sinclair borrowed the...
Literary responses
Charlotte Mew
May Sinclair
thought Madeleine magnificent, having depths & depths of passion & of sheer beauty.
Raitt, Suzanne. May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian. Clarendon Press.
191
She also enjoyed the high Victorian melodrama of Mew's reading aloud.
Raitt, Suzanne. May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian. Clarendon Press.
192
Despite her efforts to bring The Farmer's...
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...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Sinclair, May. The Allinghams. Hutchinson, 1927.
Sinclair, May. The Combined Maze. Hutchinson, 1913.
Sinclair, May. The Creators. Constable, 1910.
Sinclair, May. The Divine Fire. Constable, 1904.
Sinclair, May. “The Ethical and Religious Import of Idealism”. New World, Vol.
2
, pp. 694-08.
Sinclair, May. The Helpmate. Constable, 1907.
Sinclair, May. The Intercessor, and Other Stories. Hutchinson, 1931.
Sinclair, May. The Judgment of Eve. Harper, 1907.
Sinclair, May. The Judgment of Eve, and Other Stories. Collins, 1914.
Sinclair, May. The New Idealism. Macmillan, 1922.
Sinclair, May. “The Novels of Dorothy Richardson”. The Little Review, Vol.
4
, No. 12.
Sinclair, May. “The Poems of F.S. Flint”. The English Review.
Sinclair, May. The Rector of Wyck. Hutchinson, 1925.
Sinclair, May. The Return of the Prodigal. MacMillan, 1914.
Sinclair, May. The Romantic. Macmillan, 1920.
Sinclair, May. The Three Brontës. Hutchinson, 1911.
Sinclair, May. The Three Sisters. Hutchinson, 1914.
Sinclair, May. The Tree of Heaven. Cassell, 1917.
Sinclair, May. “Two Notes”. The Egoist.
Sinclair, May. Two Sides of a Question. Constable, 1901.
Sinclair, May, and Jean de Bosschère. Uncanny Stories. Hutchinson, 1923.
