May Sinclair (1863-1946) was a bestselling novelist who was one of the first British women to go out to the Belgian front in 1914. May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian draws on newly discovered manuscripts to tell the story of this woman whose emotional isolation bears witness to the great price Victorian women had to pay for their intellectual freedom.

This is an intense and complex stage in Sinclair's intellectual life, and Raitt writes about the mixture of forces affecting her in the late 1910s very intelligently and illuminatingly. May Sinclair: A modern Victorian is lucid, interesting and careful... this is an important and impressive achievement; when the histories of modernism are rewritten, no one will be able to ignore May Sinclair again.

`This is now the essential book on May Sinclair.' M.S. Vogeler, CHOICE Nov. 2000, Vol.38, No. 3. `Suzanne Raitt rises to the challenge of bringing Sinclair out of obscurity, a task made more difficult by the paucity of material.' Mary Tomlinson, The Times HE Supplement, 8th Sept. 2000. `Her respect for her subject, her interpretive strengths, her subtle appreciation of Sinclair's novels and her sense of historical moment combine to being Sinclair alive.' Mary Tomlinson, The Times HE Supplement, 8th Sept. 00. `Raitt always assesses Sinclair with a level gaze ... she has produced a cool-headed study of Sinclair.' Joanna Griffiths, Review of Books, 21st Sept. 00. `Raitt fills the early stages of her account with a wealth of rewarding biographical detail.' Joanna Griffiths, London Review of Books, 21st Sept. 00. `a serene, elegant biography.' Joanna Griffiths, London Review of Books, 21st Sept. 00. `Raitt ... paints an attractive and engrossing picture ... this is probably the definitive word on May Sinclair.' Robert Nye, The Tablet, 23rd Sept. 00.

By an acclaimed writer of critical, biographical, and feminist studies of twentieth-century women A major biography of an important modernist writer and feminist, whose life and work epitomize the struggle of turn-of-the-century women for intellectual independence Uncovers much new biographical material from manuscript sources

By an acclaimed writer of critical, biographical, and feminist studies of twentieth-century women A major biography of an important modernist writer and feminist, whose life and work epitomize the struggle of turn-of-the-century women for intellectual independence Uncovers much new biographical material from manuscript sources