May Sinclair (1) (1863–1946)
Auteur van The Life and Death of Harriet Frean
Voor andere auteurs genaamd May Sinclair, zie de verduidelijkingspagina.
Werken van May Sinclair
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of May Sinclair: Eight Short Stories and Four Novellas of the Strange and… (2022) 3 exemplaren
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FAME. 2 exemplaren
Collected stories 1 exemplaar
History of Anthony Waring 1 exemplaar
The Complete Works of May Sinclair (21 Complete Works of May Sinclair Including The Immortal Moment, The Judgment of… (2015) 1 exemplaar
The Token 1 exemplaar
The Villa Désirée [short fiction] 1 exemplaar
Sinclair May (Mary Amelia St. Clair) 1 exemplaar
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Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Officiële naam
- St. Clair, Mary Amelia
- Pseudoniemen en naamsvarianten
- Sinclair, May (pseudonym)
- Geboortedatum
- 1863-08-24
- Overlijdensdatum
- 1946-11-14
- Geslacht
- female
- Nationaliteit
- UK
- Geboorteplaats
- Rock Ferry, Cheshire, England, UK
- Plaats van overlijden
- Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, UK
- Woonplaatsen
- Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK
Ilford, Essex, England, UK
Gloucestershire, England, UK
Devon, England, UK
Buckinghamshire, England, UK - Opleiding
- Cheltenham Ladies College
- Beroepen
- novelist
critic
suffragist
poet
short story writer
memoirist - Relaties
- Knocker, Elsie (fellow volunteer)
- Organisaties
- Woman Writers' Suffrage League
Society for Psychical Research - Korte biografie
- Mary Amelia St. Clair was born at home at Rock Ferry in Cheshire, England, the daughter of a shipowner. She received her early education from a governess and then attended Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Her first novel, Audrey Cravern, appeared in 1897, under the pen name May Sinclair. She published two dozen novels, plus short stories and poetry, and popularized the "stream of consciousness" style advocated by Virginia Woolf. She also published the volume of literary criticism entitled The Three Brontes (1912). May Sinclair remained unmarried and lived with her mother until that lady’s death in 1901. She became a founding member of the London Medico-Psychological Clinic in 1913 to help promote the teachings of Sigmund Freud. After the outbreak of World War I, Sinclair went to France to work as an ambulance driver. She was so overcome by the war experience that she returned home to England after 17 days. She published articles based on her experiences in the The English Review and a book, A Journal of Impressions in Belgium (1915).
Leden
Besprekingen
Where Their Fire is Not Quenched - 5
Chilling story of the consequences of sin. What makes it most frightening is that you know the main character, Harriott Leigh, could too easily be you.
The Token - 4
A ghostly visit in search of love.
The Flaw in the Crystal - 3
Agatha has a power of which she is not in control but with which she heals others. This one got a bit out there and parts of it didn’t even make sense to me.
The Nature of the Evidence - 4
You might not want to be the second wife if the dead first wife isn’t quite finished yet.
If The Dead Knew - 5
I loved this one. What do the dead know of what we who are left behind think and feel? Wilfrid loves his mother, but it is only with her death that he can afford to marry, so he has a heart at war with itself.
The Victim - 4
Reminded me of the Tell-Tale Heart initially, but took a very different turn before the end. I found the end a little impractical, but then who expects a practical ghost story, I suppose.
The Finding of the Absolute - 2
This one was both weird and a little above me. I never understood Kant very well on earth, in heaven his theories seem even murkier.
The Intercessor - 5
I found this the best story in the book. Mr. Garvin seeks a quiet place to lodge and work and finds himself referred to the home of the Falshaw’s. It is obvious that something sinister has happened here and in the room where he sleeps at night, he hears the mysterious cries of a child. What ensues is eventually a story of child abandonment, parental misdeeds, and a mother’s remorse. This story has a more gothic feel than the others, and put me in mind of Emily Bronte and the loneliness of the heaths.
… (meer)
Chilling story of the consequences of sin. What makes it most frightening is that you know the main character, Harriott Leigh, could too easily be you.
The Token - 4
A ghostly visit in search of love.
The Flaw in the Crystal - 3
Agatha has a power of which she is not in control but with which she heals others. This one got a bit out there and parts of it didn’t even make sense to me.
The Nature of the Evidence - 4
You might not want to be the second wife if the dead first wife isn’t quite finished yet.
If The Dead Knew - 5
I loved this one. What do the dead know of what we who are left behind think and feel? Wilfrid loves his mother, but it is only with her death that he can afford to marry, so he has a heart at war with itself.
The Victim - 4
Reminded me of the Tell-Tale Heart initially, but took a very different turn before the end. I found the end a little impractical, but then who expects a practical ghost story, I suppose.
The Finding of the Absolute - 2
This one was both weird and a little above me. I never understood Kant very well on earth, in heaven his theories seem even murkier.
The Intercessor - 5
I found this the best story in the book. Mr. Garvin seeks a quiet place to lodge and work and finds himself referred to the home of the Falshaw’s. It is obvious that something sinister has happened here and in the room where he sleeps at night, he hears the mysterious cries of a child. What ensues is eventually a story of child abandonment, parental misdeeds, and a mother’s remorse. This story has a more gothic feel than the others, and put me in mind of Emily Bronte and the loneliness of the heaths.
… (meer)
What distinguishes Sinclair’s stories from the rest of the Victorian spooks is their variety. They don’t repeat themselves. They also rise above the level of merely miming the popular ghost tales of the time. Although all the stories involve the supernatural, these stories are hardly ever meant to be frightening so they fall into more of the strange tale category.
Sinclair also gives the impression of a feminist still in the closet. I don’t know if that makes any sense.
Sinclair also gives the impression of a feminist still in the closet. I don’t know if that makes any sense.
The Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair is a novella sized morality tale about the narrow existence of a Victorian woman. Harriet was an only child and she was brought up in a close family, she was taught that the number one virtue in life is one’s ability to behave correctly at all times. She took her life lesson to heart, even rejecting her own chance of love in order to do the “right” thing. In her efforts to behave beautifully, she didn’t notice the damage she often left behind her. She put her father on a pedestal and it wasn’t until years after his death that she could finally acknowledge to herself that he didn’t always behave in the right manner. She loved her mother dearly but didn’t notice her shrinking away from cancer. As her life comes full circle we can see that always behaving in the right manner wasn’t actually the same as doing the right thing.
The Life and Death of Harriet Frean is a critique of nineteenth century middle-class society and the damage that lurks beneath a front of good manners. In bare, bleak and ironic prose, the author covers Harriet’s life, from birth to death, in less than 100 pages. I read this story in one sitting at Project Guttenberg, and it felt more like an impersonal report than the story of one woman’s life.… (meer)
The Life and Death of Harriet Frean is a critique of nineteenth century middle-class society and the damage that lurks beneath a front of good manners. In bare, bleak and ironic prose, the author covers Harriet’s life, from birth to death, in less than 100 pages. I read this story in one sitting at Project Guttenberg, and it felt more like an impersonal report than the story of one woman’s life.… (meer)
Lijsten
Unmarried women (1)
Female Author (1)
Prijzen
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Statistieken
- Werken
- 54
- Ook door
- 46
- Leden
- 1,171
- Populariteit
- #21,976
- Waardering
- 4.2
- Besprekingen
- 30
- ISBNs
- 305
- Talen
- 6
- Favoriet
- 3
This 86 page novella follows the life of Harriet Frean from her childhood to her death. Born to an upper middle class Victorian-era family, Harriet shows some mild misbehavior and the beginnings of a mind of her own during childhood, but she idolizes her parents and chooses to always "behave beautifully". She denies herself a lover and stays with her parents into her adulthood. Her father is financially ruined and dies and she and her mother carry on. Harriet keeps her three best friends into her old age.
This is an interesting book and I'm not sure exactly what to make of it. Harriet lives a small life, but though she seems to choose this life to please her parents, there isn't necessarily an indication that she regrets it or could have done more if she'd lived in a different era. It seems to be, upon a first reading, simply about the kind of person who can't see beyond themself and is happy living a narrow life. In that respect, I think it's a commentary on Victorian values. Harriet lives the ultimate Victorian female life and Sinclair shows how small that could be.
There are also many miscommunications. Many of Harriet's seminal life events - giving up her first love, idolizing her father and not understanding that his business failure ruined others as well, never communicating openly with her mother and giving up certain things to make her mother happy that she later finds her mother gave up to make her happy . . . the list goes on. I think these show that Harriet's narrow views even held her back in the small life she chose to lead.
The one thing I didn't see in this book was stream of consciousness writing. Sinclair is often compared to Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf. I didn't get that out of this novella. That's not to say I didn't love it though. I think it's brilliantly done. It's one I'll save to reread for sure. There's a lot to think about in these 86 pages.
Original publication date: 1922
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 86 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Publisher: Modern Library
Why I read this: 1001 books list, off the shelf… (meer)