Between the early twentieth century and the mid-1920s, May Sinclair was one of the most successful and widely known of British women novelists. She produced over twenty novels, six collections of short stories, two works of philosophy, poetry and much journalism and literary criticism. Her novels range from Edwardian “social problem” novels, such as The Helpmate (1907) and Kitty Tailleur (1908), through modernist bildungsroman and experiments with narrative in Mary Olivier: A Life (1919) and The Life and Death of Harriett Frean (1922), to social comedy, such as Mr Waddington of Wyck (1921) and A Cure of Souls (1924). Her friends and acquaintances included Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Ford Madox Ford, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, HD and Rebecca West. Sinclair was committed to women's suffrage, and was one of the first English novelists to...
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Citation: Wilson, Leigh. "May Sinclair". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 July 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4086, accessed 05 December 2025.]
