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Mary Amelia St. Clair Sinclair |
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In 1923 Lewis Mumford wrote in a review (Nation, 24 January) of May Sinclair's novel Anne Severn and the Fieldings (1922): "Saving perhaps Mr. D. H. Lawrence, who in England can keep [Sinclair] company"" The equation of Lawrence and Sinclair seems most appropriate because both wrote scathing critiques of families; both came from the nonelite, nonuniversity middle class; and both studied and wrote about the new field of psychoanalysis. Although not well known today, Sinclair's Mary Olivier: A Life (1919) was controversial in its time for blending psychoanalysis and fiction. Some reviewers praised the novel, but others were dubious as to its value. E. M. Forster questioned whether it was art; Katherine Mansfield, notorious for her negative reviews, wondered whether the material (the development of a girl) warranted attention. But by 1923 the novel's reputation was established enough that Mumford declared: "'Mary Olivier,' it seems to me, is not merely Miss Sinclair's masterpiece: it is one of the outstanding novels of the century."
Sinclair did not begin as a novelist.
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