Work on the #CriticalEditions project is gathering pace, although the result is a bit like decorating a room and finding crumbling, damp plaster under the old wallpaper. All this has to be corrected before new wallpaper can be hung and you finally see the results of your efforts in all their colourful glory! The General Editors have been sourcing all UK1 editions and producing the digital copy texts that will enable us to get started on the real work of editing. Tracking down all the short fiction has been a very slow, tricky and stop-start process, but barring one trip to the British Library Claire has now traced every variant, including one never-published manuscript copied by Becky from the Kislak Centre, UPenn. This should save a lot of work as we move onto Tranche 2, in which the second volume is being edited by Paul March-Russell. Copy-texts are on the way to being completed for ‘Defence’ and ‘New Idealism’, so work can soon begin in earnest on our first, philosophical tranche. In the meantime, any tips on use of MVED software for compiling variants would be very gratefully received! It’s slow, but we are starting to see progress.

It’s been a busy summer for the May Sinclair Society and for the General Editors on the critical editions project. Our call for editors for the critical editions had an overwhelming response and we are delighted to announce the line-up of individual volume editors and the shape of the editions project.

The Edinburgh Critical Editions of the Works of May Sinclair will be published in themed tranches: ‘Philosophy and Mysticism’, ‘Psychology and Genius’, ‘Women, War and Feminism’, ‘Social Satire’ and ‘Social Realism’. Within these tranches, non-fiction and fiction appear side by side so that the dialogues between each can be explored. The Sinclair editions will position Sinclair as philosopher, psychologist, and cultural historian as well as novelist. Work on the first tranche is already underway.

Philosophy and Mysticism

Collected Shorter Fiction vol. 1 (1895-1912) ed. by Claire Drewery and Luke Thurston

A Defence of Idealism (1917) ed. by Claire Drewery and Colin Tyler

Mary Olivier: A Life (1919) ed. by Rebecca Bowler and Claire Drewery

The New Idealism (1922) ed. by Rebecca Bowler and James Connelly

Arnold Waterlow: A Life (1924) ed. by Rebecca Bowler

Psychology and Genius

The Divine Fire (1904) ed. by Claire Drewery

The Creators: A Comedy (1910) ed. by Vicki Mahaffey and Wendy Truran

The Three Brontës (1912) ed. by Gerri Kimber

Collected Shorter Fiction vol. 2 (1913-1931) ed. by Paul March-Russell

The Three Sisters (1914) ed. by Howard Finn

Life and Death of Harriett Frean (1922) ed. by Charlotte Beyer

Women, War and Feminism

The Helpmate (1907) ed. by Charlotte Jones

Kitty Tailleur (1908) ed. by Annalise Grice

A Journal of Impressions in Belgium (1915) ed. by Laurel Forster

The Tree of Heaven (1917) ed. by George Johnson

The Romantic (1920) ed. by Stephanie Jones

Anne Severn and the Fieldings (1922) ed. by Andrew Frayn

Collected Non-Fiction (1882-1928) ed. by Sanna Melin Schyllert and Leigh Wilson

Social Realism

The Combined Maze (1913) ed. by Chrissie Van Mierlo and Wim Van Mierlo

Tasker Jeavons: The Real Story/The Belfry (1916), ed by Rebecca Bowler

Far End (1926), ed. by Leslie de Bont

The Allinghams (1927), ed. by Faye Pickrem

History of Anthony Waring (1927), tbc.

Social Satire

Audrey Craven (1897), ed. by Anna Girling

Mr and Mrs Nevill Tyson/The Tysons (1898), ed. by Faye Pickrem

Mr Waddington of Wyck (1921), ed. by Isobel Maddison

A Cure of Souls (1924), ed. by Joanna Scutts

The Rector of Wyck (1925), ed. by Aoife Byrne

 

Two volumes in the later tranches are as yet unclaimed, and will be assigned further down the line.

We’ve also been busy writing the editorial handbook, beginning grant applications, and presenting the editions at conferences: BAMS Modernist Life (a special panel on editing Sinclair’s philosophical works, with Rebecca Bowler, James Connelly, Claire Drewery, and Colin Tyler), Remaking the New: Modernism and Textual Scholarship, and ICVWW’s Reassessing Women Writers 1900s-1910s. Here’s Rebecca Bowler presenting on editing Mary Olivier and Arnold Waterlow at Remaking the New, Queen Mary University, 13 July 2017.

 

The May Sinclair Society would like to offer happy and hearty congratulations to Leslie de Bont, who has received the “Prix de thèse André Topia (études modernistes)”  for her PhD thesis on May Sinclair: ‘Like anecdotes from a case-book: Dialogues entre discours théoriques et cas particuliers dans les romans de May Sinclair. The André Topia prize is part of a prestigious series of prizes called “Les Prix de la Chancellerie des Universités de Paris”. La Chancellerie des Universités is a 800 years old organisation that oversees all the higher-education institutions in Paris and the suburbs. There are about 60 prizes, and they are given each year to the best research/PhD thesis defended in Paris. The ceremony took place on the 1st December 2016 in the Grand Amphithéâtre de la Sorbonne, which dates back from 1889. In the photo Leslie is shaking hands with the Head of the University Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle, the University where she defended her thesis.

Leslie says: ‘Among other things, the prize will help me translate and publish my thesis, and it will definitely bring Sinclair some attention in France’!