From Hearth to Heath: Angelic Transformations in May Sinclair’s Major Novels

Abstract

This chapter focuses on May Sinclair’s three best-known novels: The Three Sisters, Mary Olivier: A Life and Life and Death of Harriett Frean. Technically, Sinclair’s work falls outside the parameters of this volume, since she began writing in 1897, and wrote her more significant contributions to the English novel between 1914 and 1922. However the central characters of the three novels I wish to discuss are fictional representations of products of a Victorian upbringing, an upbringing shared by Sinclair herself. I intend to argue that two of these characters challenge and rewrite the Victorian ideal of womanhood, as exemplified by the Angel in the House.