The Underrepresented Modernism Project.

May Sinclair: A Forgotten Suffragist, Poet, and Philosopher

“At the moment you are no longer an observing, reflecting being; you have ceased to be aware of yourself; you exist only in that quiet, steady thrill that is so unlike any excitement that you have ever known.” – May Sinclair

May Sinclair was a modernist of all modernists. She was the first person to coin the term “stream of consciousness,” when reviewing an essay in 1918,¹ a term that defines the movement and its writing. In her lifetime she wrote and published 23 novels, 29 short stories, and multiple poetry collections, was a literary critic, (one of the first to promote Ezra pound and other contemporaries), and a philosopher, writing about feminist issues and working with suffragist groups.² Her literary talent spans multiple genres and avenues, her influence on the movement undeniable, and her legacy: forgotten. Held back by a troublesome past and extreme anxiety about the future, she was rarely seen by friends and other writers after 1920. 

Before her ill fated disappearance, Sinclair led a rather interesting life. She was born in 1863 in Liverpool, Mary Amelia St. Clair, the youngest of six children and the only girl. The first part of her childhood was spent in a middle class home and a few servants, until her father’s business failed, forcing the family to move out of their home. After this, her father struggled with alcoholism and was not able to provide for the family.³ As well as a strained relationship with her father, her relationship with her mother was not much better, “May Sinclair’s mother, was ‘an unimaginative and inflexible woman’, and her strict views on religion and propriety made for a rather repressive atmosphere.”⁴ She was eventually able to escape the difficulties of her family and attended Cheltenham Ladies’ College, where she showed a promise in philosophy, and began to write in the college’s newspaper.⁵ Her studies were tragically cut short by the deaths of her father and three of her brothers.⁶ She moved back home to help the family, but never returned to school. Throughout the end of the 19th century, she published a few works including her first novel, but struggled significantly with her finances and helped translate novels to make money. 

It was not until 1904 that she published The Divine Fire, the novel that would put her on the map. The novel was so successful that she was able to go on a book tour and meet other working writers. It was after this that she was able to immerse herself in the literary world. She continued to write and publish, and began her philosophical work in the women’s suffrage movement, “writing letters in the suffragist periodical Votes for Women, and joining the Women’s Freedom League in 1908.”⁷ She continued her scholarly work as well, writing quite indepthly about the Brontë sisters. She was also the British first woman to write about WWI from the battle grounds, as she went to Belgium to help the war effort.⁸

Up until the 20s, it seems that Sinclair was a very sociable person, meeting with some of the most famous Modernist writers, such as Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, and Mark Twain. She published steadily up until then, but it has been noted by scholars that after 1920, her work took a decline as she was preoccupied with a past that she no longer lived, and a present life that lacked close personal relationships. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease sometime in the early twenties, and died in 1946, her contributions and influence in literature seemingly dying with her. 

“Although currently neglected in modernist studies, Sinclair is a fascinating figure who was deeply immersed in the intellectual currents of her time.”

May Sinclair as an Underrepresented Author:

A certain irony can be found in the fact that Sinclair was such a heavy promoter of her now much more recognized colleagues, while her title within the literary community mostly includes being forgotten. A sadness filled me when reading about Sinclair’s life, a difficult childhood bookended with reclusive later years, with a mind and words that yearned to be studied. While recognized as a talented literary critic, her own work is just as impressive, and quite expansive. As mentioned in her biography above, her writing was not confined to one genre or form. As a theorist and philosopher, she explored freudian ideas and psychoanalysis, and was heavily interested in the ancient Greek tradition. As well put by Yale’s Modernist Lab, “She primarily wrote novels of ideas, as her precocious female protagonists grappled with Greek philosophy, Spinoza, and Christian mysticism.  Sinclair, who wrote numerous tracts on philosophical idealism and was well versed in Freudian psychology, stands at the intersection of art and intellectual life, of literature and philosophy.”⁹ 

While gaining more of a scholarly appreciation in recent years, her name has yet to make into the canon of traditional modernist authors, even though her contributions were so integral to the movement. It is rather strange to me that someone who was once so involved in Modernism and its most well known writers could be so easily forgotten. I have thought in detail about why she is so forgotten, was it her seclusion in her later life? The writing itself? Her political activity? Frankly I have no idea why we have left her behind. It is undeniable that she was an important part of the British Modernism movement, and even more undeniable what a loss was gained when she was forgotten. 

Her work can be found here, on Project Gutenberg.

Bibliography

Bowler, Rebecca. “Biography, May Sinclair, 1863-1946.” maysinclairsociety.com, July 11, 2015. https://maysinclairsociety.com/biography/.

Domestico, Anthony. “May Sinclair.” Modernism Lab, 2012. https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/may-sinclair/. 

Fraser, C. Gerald. “Josephine Lawrence, 88, Author; Novelist of Middle‐class America.” The New York Times, February 24, 1978. https://www.nytimes.com/1978/02/24/archives/josephine-lawrence-88-author-novelist-of-middleclass-america-a.html. Raitt, Suzanne. “‘Dying to Live’: Remembering and Forgetting May Sinclair.” In May Sinclair: Re-Thinking Bodies and Minds, edited by Rebecca Bowler and Claire Drewery, 21–38. Edinburgh University Press, 2017. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1g0520s.5.