Miss May Sinclair: Novelist (A Biographical and Critical Introduction) (review)

139 during the 1960s might have been included (those by A. Woodward, Louise Dauner, Bernard Spencer, and John Magnus come to mind), since Forster was then living. The bulk of E, M. Forster criticism has appeared since 1957 though one would not gather that fact from this anthology. In his excellent survey in his "Introduction ," Gardner does bring the record closer to the present, though in somewhat sketchy fashion. Certainly worth the price of the volume are the otherwise unpublished letters by people of major stature. Frieda Lawrence's enthusiasm for The Longest Journey is infectious, Edward Carpenter 's judicious praise of A Passage to India and his modified enthusiasm for Maurice are discerning, Edith Sitwell's admiration for the short stories is generous and justifiable, and Lytton Strachey's jaundiced appreciation of Maurice and his sharp critique of the homosexual relationships in this novel are of inestimable value. A book, in short, that every Forster enthusiast will want to browse about in continually. University of Iowa Frederick P. W. McDowell 3. Theophills E. M. Boll. Miss May Sinclair: Novelist (A Biographical and Critical Introduction) (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1973). Professor Boll's works on May Sinclair (1863-1946), his articles and now this book, will remain important sources of information on Sinclair for a long time to come. Boll has gathered, examined, and analyzed a great deal of material by and about May Sinclair) here he sets forth his reasons for considering her the equal of Virginia Woolf and "the Arnold Bennett of all but his four greatest novels," the near equal of George Eliot as a novelist and scholar in philosophy. The book is divided into two parts, the first presenting biographical data, and the second, discussion of all twenty-seven novels and at least a line of two on all Sinclair's "other writings." Both parts unfortunately lack the discrimination, interpretation, and appropriate emphasis that one may well expect in an "introduction " to an author. "Part 1: Her Life" begins with a short chapter that describes Sinclair reading a paper before the Aristotelian Society in 1923. Drawing on eyewitness accounts to describe Sinclair's appearance, her presentation, reactions to her paper and her reaction to questions , Boll establishes a clear image of the appearance and personality of the mature author. Following that, however, interpretation comes only by way of quotation of paraphrase of those who knew Sinclair - her friends or, most often, her servant and companion of the last twenty-seven years of her life, Florence Bartrop. I don't see much of an image or anything especially striking here. 140 On p. 112 six short, unrelated paragraphs record events of 19161 ? - her first writings on psychoanalysis, her election to the Aristotelian Society, the publication of The Tree of Heaven, and the publication of two short stories - all apparently of equal importance. There is repetition - G. B. Stern's reaction to Sinclair 's mother is quoted in the description of the Sinclair family (pp. 26-2?) and then again when Mary Olivier has been published (p. 122), and twice we are told how Sinclair acquired her favorite cat, Jerry, the first time at length (p. 118) and the second in a slightly abbreviated version (p. 147). May Sinclair as a person and artist comes alive only fitfully in the reportage of Part 1, as in the vivid image of her in her decay (1931-46) that Boll rises to: "an old woman with a lolling head whose body and mind had devoluted toward the Nirvana that once had fascinated her imagination" (p. 151)· Part 1 is, however , a valuable data bank for those already interested in Sinclair . The publication dates of the works are duly noted at the appropriate chronological points in Part 1. The curious reader might well find himself flipping back into "Part 2: Her Writings" in an attempt to integrate life and works. Part 2 is organized chronologically, by decades, a chapter on the novels of the decade being followed by a shorter chapter on the "other writings" of the decade through four decades and eight chapters. Although Professor Boll makes occasional helpful comments, the really hard work of significantly interrelating novels and...