Mary Sinclair: a Modern Victorian

W&M ScholarWorks Arts & Sciences Books Arts and Sciences Spring 5-11-2000 Mary Sinclair: A Modern Victorian Suzanne Raitt College of William and Mary, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/asbook Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Raitt, Suzanne. "Mary Sinclair: A Modern Victorian" (2000). New York: Oxford University Press. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/asbook/1 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts and Sciences at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arts & Sciences Books by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. May Sinclair I May Sinclair A Modern Victorian SUZANNE RAITT CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research , schola rship , and education by publishing worldwide in 0 xford ew York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai airobi Paris aoPaulo ingapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United tates by Oxford University Pres Inc., ~ ew York uzanne Raitt 2000 The moral rights of the author have been a erted Databa e right Oxford Univer ity Press (maker) First published 2000 All rights reserved. o part of this publication may be reproduced, stared in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any mean , withoutthe prior permi sion in v. riting of Oxford Univer tty Pre s. or as expre sly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics right organization. Enquines concerning reproduction out ide the scope of the above hould be ent tO the Right Department, Oxford U niver ity Pre s, at the address above You must not circulate thi book in any other binding or cover and you must impo e thi same condition on any acquiror British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congres Cataloging in Publication Data Raitt, uzanne . May inclair: a modem ict0rian / uzanne Raitt. p.cm. Include bibliographical references and index. 1. inclair, May. 2. Feminism and literature-England-Hi t0ry-2oth century. 3. Women and literature-England-Hist0ry-2oth century. 4. oveli ts, En,J 20th century-Biography. ,. Femini ts-Great Britain-Biograph). 6. 11 ,dcmt~ m (Literature)-England. I. Title. PR6037.I73 Z84 2000 823'.912-dc21 99-0,,119 [BJ B 0--19-8 12298-, I 3) 7 9 IO 8 6 -1 2 Type3et in Fournier by Jayvee , Trivandrum, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddle Ltd., Guildford and King's Lynn For my father the first biographer I ever met ...- . ··~- -- -·-- - - -- -----~ · ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - I owe a great debt of gratitude to May Sinclair's literary executors, her great nephews Frank and Peter, and her great-niece the late Naomi Assinder, for allowing me unlimited access to the papers and photographs in their collec tion, for reading the final manuscript, and for permission to quote from May Sinclair's published and unpublished work. Thanks too to Jamie Fergusson for helping me find the Assinders. Many individuals and institutions on both ides of the Atlantic have given me help, support, and advice throughout the long gestation of this project. I am grateful to Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, and to the University of Michigan for research leaves and funding that allowed me to work on the manuscript. The British Academy the English Department at Queen Mary and Westfield College and the In titute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan all gave me small personal research grants that enabled me to travel to vital archives. In 1998-9 I was lucky enough to be awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the National Humanities Center, where I com pleted the book. I am grateful to all the staff at the Center for their unfailing cheerfulness and efficiency, and I want particularly to tha the librarians, Alan Tuttle, Jean Houston, and especially Eliza Robert on, who spent hours poring through databas es and downloading bibliographical aides for me. Many people read and commented on earlier drafts of part or all of this book. I am grateful to Nicola Beisel, Hermione Lee, Ruthie Petrie, Jacque line Rose, P. A. Skantze, Trudi Tate, David Thomas, David Trotter, and Patricia Yaeger, for all their help and advice. The Biography Group at the National Humanities Center was an ideal environment in which to work through many of the difficulties I encountered during the final stages of the writing, and I wish to thank Janet Beizer, Jon Bush, Ed Friedman, R. W. B. Lewis, Elizabeth McHenry, Wilfrid Prest, Bert and Anne Wyatt-Brown, and especially Rochelle Gurstein, Marilynn Richtarik, and Ashraf Rushdy, who Acknowledgements Vll literall y read pages as they tumbled out of the printer. Thank to Tony La Vopa for always knowing, and improving on what I wanted to say, and for teaching me so much about biography, philo ophy, and the pleasures of intellectual exchange. Liz Barne patiently read every word of this manu script, and many more that did not make the final ver ion. Her influence and in ight are apparent on every page. Thank too to the following people for advice reference and practical help: athalie Blondel imon Buxton Helen Carr, Elizabeth Crawford Jane Hiddle ton Donna K. John ton Matthew Kibble Michael Millgate Alex wen Morag hiach and Peter Slee. I am grateful to Maggie Funderburg and Jack and Jackie Gregory for their kindnes during my tay in Philadelphia to Anne Trei man and Daniel Kahneman for their ho pitality and genero ity in Manhattan and to Irene Ro enfeld for making my tay in hapel Hill uch a happy one. Thank al o to J a on Freeman op hie Gold worthy France Whi tler and especially Kim cott Walwyn at xford U niver ity Pre for all their help and advice. I am grateful to audience at the foll wing place fi r their c mment criti ci m and advice: the Engli h Department tanfi rd Uni er ity· the Gender ociety and Culture eminar Birkbeck olle e Uni er ity f London· the Graduate Re earch eminar Uni er ity f la g w· Twentieth Century Graduate eminar Uni er ity f ambridge (e pecially Maud Ellmann and Heather Glen)· the M derni m Re earch eminar Uni er ity of orth London ( e pecially Claire Buck Car lyn Burdett and Lynd ey tonebridge); Cardiff Critical Theory eminar Univer ity of Wale · em inar on Culture and P ychoanaly i King' College Re earch entre Uni versity of Cambridge· the arrative onference rthwe tern U niver ity· the Legacy of the Bronte Conference niver ity f Leed · the rland Project's Women and Hi tory Conference Univer ity of Alberta Edmon ton; the Cultural Context ofModerni m onference Centre fi r European Studie Univer ity of London· Romance Revi ited Women' tudie et work Conference U niver ity of Lan ca ter. I am al o indebted to taff at the following librarie and archive who have given me invaluable a si tance in locating and in many ca e xeroxing publi bed and unpubli hed material: the Annenberg Rare Book and Manu- cript Library, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center Univer ity f Penn ylva nia, e pecially ancy hawcro and Daniel Trai ter; the Briti h Library; Senate House Library Univer ity of London; Queen Mary and We tfield College Library; the London Library; Harlan Hatcher Library, U niver ity of Michigan; the Earl G. Swem Library College of William and Mary; the Davis Library, University of orth Carolina at Chapel Hill, especially Vlll Acknowledgements Tom Nixon; the Fawcett Library; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Berg Collection, New York Public Library; the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, especially Janet Wallwork; Cheltenham Ladies' College Archive Department, especially Janet Johnstone; the Thomas Hardy Memorial Collection, Dorset County Museum, especially Richard de Peyer; Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections , Cornell University Library; The Brotherton Collection , Leeds University Library; the Archives, Emmanuel College , University of Cambridge, especially Janet Morris and Frank Stubbings; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin; the Macmillan Archive, University of Reading; the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia U niver ity; the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collection N orthwe tern University Library; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the Hunt ington Library, San Marino California; U niver ity of Illinoi Library at Urbana-Champaign; the Library of Univer ity College London; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; the Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library; Trinity College University of Cambridge; the Archive Department at King' chool, Canterbury; the Bertrand Russell Archive , Mills Memorial Library, McMa ter University; the Bancroft Library Univer ity of California at Berkeley; the Picture Library, National Portrait Gallery, London; the Bentley Library, U niver ity of Michigan. Thank you to the following people for their upport love, and help dur ing the writing of this book: my family, Janet Hiddle ton, Alan Raitt, Jim Hiddleston, Lia Raitt, Claire Raitt, Anna and Jane Hiddle ton, icky Mooney, and Alain Galloni; Sarah Ahmed, Caroline A h, Phillip Blumberg, Matthew Fink, Elizabeth Gregory, Rebecca Hall Stephen Heath Mandy Hetherton, Diana Hinds, Caroline Kay Arlene Keize~, asant Kumar, Brenda K.

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