Exciting News from the May Sinclair Society!

Exciting news regarding May Sinclair, who was one of the most important and famous writers at the time of WW1 on both sides of the Atlantic.  May helped to fund, and accompanied, Dr. Hector Munro’s Flying Ambulance Unit to France in September 1914.  She stayed to help out for six weeks before returning to Britain to write about her experiences.  May Sinclair was the first poet I researched for the exhibition of Female Poets of the First World War at the Wilfred Owen Story Museum in Argyle Street, Birkenhead, Wirral, UK.  May is also one of the poets featured in Volume 1 of Female Poets of the First World War, available from http://www.poshupnorth.com/2013/08/new-title-female-poets-of-first-world.html - also available as a download.

From: Dr Rebecca Bowler (Keele University), Dr Claire Drewery (Sheffield Hallam), and Suzanne Raitt (William & Mary College)

“We received some exciting news yesterday: our proposal for a series of critical editions of May Sinclair's works has been approved by Edinburgh University Press!

The Edinburgh Critical Editions of the Works of May Sinclair will publish Sinclair’s collected prose works: twenty-one novels, six short story collections (bundled in two volumes of ‘shorter fiction’), two volumes of philosophy, one biography (of the Brontë sisters) and one memoir (of the First World War). There will also be one volume of Sinclair’s collected non-fiction, including The Way of Sublimation. Non-fiction and fiction will appear side by side so that the dialogues between each can be explored. Rebecca Bowler, Claire Drewery and Suzanne Raitt are the General Editors.

May Sinclair was an innovative and influential Modernist writer, and these critical editions will, we hope, attract further scholarship on her writings and revive interest in Sinclair as an important modernist writer and public intellectual.

We will be in touch in the New Year with a call for expressions of interest from scholars who wish to edit individual volumes.”

Find out more about The May Sinclair Society - http://www.maysinclairsociety.com

And follow them on Facebook here - http://www.facebook.com/maysinclairsociety

The Wilfred Owen Story, 34 Argyle Street, Birkenhead, Wirral, UK, CH41 6AE. Open Tuesday - Friday 11 am till 2 pm or by appointment o7903 337995.
http://www.wilfredowenstory.com/news.html

Also on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/wilfredowenstory

 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919) – American poet “The Poetess of Passion”

The Poetess of Passion

Ella Wheeler was born on 5th November 1850 in Johnstown, Wisconsin, USA.  Soon after her birth, the family moved to Madison.  Ella began writing poetry at an early age, and became known as "The Poetess of Passion".

You may have heard the line “Laugh and the world laughs with you” which is from Ella’s poem “Solitude”, first published in “The New York Sun” in 1898.   “Ella Wheeler Wilcox was probably the most widely read poet of the day”, selling 100,000 copies of her poetry collection entitled “One Hundred Poems” in the early years of the twentieth century (Hollis, 40). 

When planning his trip to America, Rupert Brooke suggested he might take a “message for the continent of America and for Ella Wheeler” (Hollis, 67).

Ella m arried Robert Wilcox of Meriden, Connecticut in 1884.  They travelled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.  Ella's husband died in 1916.

Ella travelled to France after America entered the First World War in order to read poetry to the American Troops - quite an unertaking for a woman of 67.  They were very pleased to see her and really appreciated her performances. Ella wrote poems for the troops while she was in France and published them in a volume entitled "Hello, Boys".

During her lifetime, Ella wrote and pulished more than 70 books, wrote thousands of poems and also wrote plays and magazine articles.

Ella died on 30th October 1919.  In spite of her fame, Ella Wheeler Wilcox is now one of the ‘forgotten’ poets of the First World War.

“War Mothers” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There is something in the sound of drum and fife
That stirs all the savage instincts into life.

In the old times of peace we went our ways,
Through proper days
Of little joys and tasks. Lonely at times,
When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes,
Telling to all the world some maid was wife—
But taking patiently our part in life
As it was portioned us by Church and State,
Believing it our fate.
     Our thoughts all chaste
Held yet a secret wish to love and mate
     Ere youth and virtue should go quite to waste.
But men we criticised for lack of strength,
And kept them at arm's length.
Then the war came—
The world was all aflame!
The men we had thought dull and void of power
Were heroes in an hour.
He who had seemed a slave to petty greed
Showed masterful in that great time of need.
He who had plotted for his neighbour's pelf,
Now for his fellows offers up himself.
And we were only women, forced by war
To sacrifice the things worth living for.

Something within us broke,
    Something within us woke,
        The wild cave-woman spoke.

When we heard the sound of drumming,
    As our soldiers went to camp,
    Heard them tramp, tramp, tramp;
As we watched to see them coming,
    And they looked at us and smiled
    (Yes, looked back at us and smiled),
As they filed along by hillock and by hollow,
    Then our hearts were so beguiled
    That, for many and many a day,
    We dreamed we heard them say,
'Oh, follow, follow, follow!'
    And the distant, rolling drum
    Called us 'Come, come, come!'
    Till our virtue seemed a thing to give away.

War had swept ten thousand years away from earth.
    We were primal once again.
    There were males, not modern men;
We were females meant to bring their sons to birth.
    And we could not wait for any formal rite,
    We could hear them calling to us, 'Come to-night;
For to-morrow, at the dawn,
We move on!'
    And the drum
    Bellowed, 'Come, come, come!'
And the fife
Whistled, 'Life, life, life!'

So they moved on and fought and bled and died;
Honoured and mourned, they are the nation's pride.
We fought our battles, too, but with the tide
Of our red blood, we gave the world new lives.
Because we were not wives
We are dishonoured. Is it noble, then,
To break God's laws only by killing men
To save one's country from destruction?
We took no man's life but gave our chastity,
And sinned the ancient sin
To plant young trees and fill felled forests in.

Oh, clergy of the land,
Bible in hand,
All reverently you stand,
    On holy thoughts intent
    While barren wives receive the sacrament!
Had you the open visions you could see
    Phantoms of infants murdered in the womb,
    Who never knew a cradle or a tomb,
Hovering about these wives accusingly.

Bestow the sacrament! Their sins are not well known—
Ours to the four winds of the earth are blown.


Source: "Poems of Purpose" (1919)

Ella features in Volume 1 of Female Poets of the First World War available from www.poshupnorth.com

Also available as a download.

Source:  “Now all Roads lead to France  The Last Years of Edward Thomas” by Matthew Hollis (Faber & Faber, London, 2012)

Carolyn Wells (1862 - 1942) - American writer, poet and journalist

Carolyn was born on 18th June 1862 in Rahway, New Jersey, USA.   Her parents were William Edmund Wells and his wife Anna Wells nee Potter Woodruff.  Two of Carolyn's sisters died in childhood.

At the age of six, Carolyn contracted Scarlet Fever and as a result suffered a loss of hearing.  She nevertheless overcame the handicap and went on to graduate from school and was then taught at home by private tutors, studying the humanities and science.  Carolyn worked as a librarian at Rahway Library Association.  During her life-time, Carolyn wrote and had published over 170 books including detective stories, children's books, humour, parody and poetry.  Her work was published in "Punch" magazine and she also wrote for various newspapers and contributed to "The Yellow Book".   Her detective books were particularly popular.  In 1913, she published "The Technique of the Mystery Story".

In 1918, at the age of 55, Carolyn married 62-year old widower Hadwin Houghton who was heir to the Houghton-Mifflin publishing company.  The couple went to live in an apartment block in Manhatten where Hadwin died the following year.  Carolyn lived in New York until her death on 26th March 1942.

Carolyn's life-story "The Rest of my Life" was published in 1937.

With grateful thanks to Dr. Margaret Stetz, May and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Humanities, Delaware University, USA for bringing Carolyn Wells to my attention and for suggesting I look at the following poem written by Carolyn and published in 1919:

BALLADE OF WAR BOOKS BY CAROLYN WELLS

I seem to wander in a world of books,
With titles such as, "'Neath the Trumpet's Blare",
And "Sammy Fire-Away!" and "Private Snooks", And "Hank, the Yank", and "Danny Do-and-Dare!" And though the war is over, Over There,
Yet must be published books already penned They pour from presses daily I declare
Of making many war books there's no end!
And, somehow I opine-the way it looks - That for an aftermath we must prepare:
Adventure yarns of wartime cranks and crooks, And lives of heroes who have done their share. True tales of noble deeds of courage rare;
Histories of events, as yet unkenned: Journals and diaries, and such small ware-
Of making many war books there's no end !
And there'll be messages from soldier spooks, Transmitted through a wily medium's care;
Telling of waving trees and limpid brooks
Where rove the souls who've climbed the Golden Stair: And poems "Lyric Lines To France, the Fair",
"Red Poppy Fields", "My Faithful Four Years' Friend", "Heroic Feet", "A Lock of Lemuel's Hair"-
Of making many war books there's no end ! L'Etoile:
Publisher, Printer, Editor, forbear !
Nor longer than you must, your lists extend :
Do let this gushing output stop somewhere Of making many war books there's no end !

First published in "The Bookman", January 1919, page 643

Sources:  

Dr. Margaret Stetz "The Transatlantic" and late Nineteenth-Century American Women's Humor" published in "Studies in American Humor", Volume 1, 2015, Pensylvania State University, PA.

"Encyclopedia of American Humorists" Edited by Stephen H. Gale, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxford, 1988

"Mysteries Unlocked Essays in Honour of Douglas G. Greene, edited by Curtis Evans, published by McFarland and Company, Jefferson, 2014

May Sinclair Letter to the publisher John Lane

Exciting news from the May Sinclair Society about a letter discovered recently tucked away in one of May Sinclair's books. 

It seems that May was very much a part of the London literary scene during the time of the First World War.  "Theophilus Boll places her at a party Lane gave in 1914 to launch Wyndham Lewis’s Blast! (‘May Sinclair enjoyed herself hugely with Ivor Brown at the dinner that John Lane gave on July 15, 1914, at the Dieudonné Restaurant in Ryder Street, St. James, to set off the Blast!’). Ivor Brown said of this ‘I don’t know how far M.S. was impressed, but at that period she liked to go about and be in the midst of literary goings-on’.^"

Read more on the Society's website:
https://maysinclairsociety.com/2016/11/02/discovery-letter-from-may-sinclair-to-john-lane-31-december-1917/

100th anniversary of the publishing of the poem "To the Vanguard" by Beatrix Brice Miller

Today, 2nd November 2016, marks the centenary of the publication of the poem "To the Vanguard" by British poet Beatrix Brice Miller in "The Times" newspaper.  Beatrix and her Mother went as Lady Helpers with the British Expeditionary Force in 1914.   Beatrix never forgot the first men to go to the continent in 1914 - The "Old Contemptibles" as they became known.   She campaigned tirelessly for memorials to them and held fund-raising events to make that possible.

Beatrix is one of the poets featured in Volume Two of "Female Poets of the First World War" which also includes other British women poets as well as sections about munitions workers and poetry written by schoolgirls at the time of WW1.  Also included is Phil Dawes' article about knitting in WW1.

You can purchase Volume Two of "Female Poets of the First World War" on-line now via http://www.poshupnorth.com/2016/09/female-poets-of-first-world-war-volume-2_27.html

With grateful thanks to everyone who supports this commemorative project and all those who helped in the collection of the poems in Volume 2, to Phil Dawes for his continued support and for the article on poetry and knitting in WW1, Roger Quinn for information about Janet Begbie (WW1 poet Harold Begbie's daughter), David Reynolds for information about Beatrix Brice Miller and to Paul Breeze who edits all my work.

Photo:  Dr. Margaret Stetz who is Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Humanities at the University of Delaware, USA.

Ella Mary Stratton (1898 - 1981) - British

With many thanks to Phil Dawes who has researched Ella M. Stratton for me.  This is what Phil wrote:

Ella Mary Stratton was born on 31^st July 1898, in the village of Haverigg, near Millom in the Coounty of Cumberland, which is now called south Cumbria.  The area was at that time a centre for iron ore smelting.  Her father was the Reverend Watson Stratton, curate at St Luke’s Church, a small Anglican Chapel-of -Ease.  Ella’s mother was Sarah Stratton, nee Simpson and her parents were married in Huntingdon in 1862.

Ella’s father was not the typical churchman and his modest curacy probably reflected his modest background which was as a Fenland farm labourer’s son. 

On the 1911 census, Ella was a 12 year old schoolgirl. Her father was by then curate of St. David’s Church in the tiny village of Airmyn near Goole, Yorkshire. He was a regular contributor to the local paper on a wide range of topics including the natural world and growing vegetables.

In 1914 Ella’s poem ‘The Navy’ was selected by Dr. Charles Forshaw for inclusion in his anthology ‘One Hundred Best Poems on the European War by Women Poets of the Empire’. It was written when she was just 16 years old.   

A brief report of Ella’s marriage in the “Telegraph” gives us a glimpse of her achievements prior to June 1932, when she married Ewart John Buxton, a dentist, at Peterborough Cathedral.  She is described as ‘Ella Mary Stratton MBBS London, MRCS, LRCP, DTM’.   From this we can infer that she attended the London Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women and that she qualified as a doctor and subsequently became a surgeon.

A slightly longer report from the “Derby Times” of 13^th June 1932 gives us an added dimension: Ella is described as a doctor who has been working for three years in the Gold Coast, West Africa for the British Government.   It appears that she had only just got back in time for the ceremony in the Cathedral as she was wearing ‘travelling clothes’ rather than a wedding dress. We also find that both her parents are dead, hence perhaps the note that the couple ‘were married quietly’.  Ella was given away by her cousin Alex Shelton, from Ramsey in the Fens.

The newlyweds settled down in Marlborough, Wiltshire, where Ewart worked as a Dental Surgeon.  In those days it was still normal, even obligatory in some professions, for a married woman to give up work. On the 1939 war-time census we find that Ella’s  job is listed as ‘Unpaid domestic duties’, but she must have told the enumerator of her previous career as underneath is written: ‘Medical practitioner, retired’.  Another note tells us that both of the Buxtons were doing wartime duties during the Second World War for the Air Raid Patrol by ‘assisting at local First Aid Post’.

Ella and Ewart must have eventually retired back to the region of her birth in south west Cumbria. Ewart died in Ulverston district in 1976 and Ella died in Barrow-in-Furness district in 1981, aged 83.

Phil Dawes, 27^th October 2016

Ella’s poem “THE NAVY” was published in “One Hundred of the Best Poems on the European War by Women Poets of the Empire”, Edited by Dr. Charles Forshaw, FRSL, founder of the International Institute of British Poetry (Elliot Stock, London, 1916)

Long, low, dark and grey,

Sinister warships at break of day,
Silently steaming our coasts around,
Straining at the leash as a tracker's hound.

Small, dark periscope top,

Showing a moment, — the next to drop,
Shattered at last by a gunner's skill.
One less submarine working ill.

Long, lean sides of the ship

Leaving no chance for torpedo to rip,
Searchlight so dazzling revealing the night,
Speed — to o'ertake the foeman in flight.

Men of the Navy, we give you your due,

None so enduring, unselfish as you,
Giving your all in the rush and the strife,
Guarding our honour and guarding our life.

Helen Lanyon (1882 – 1979) – British poet

My thanks to Carley for asking me to research Helen Lanyon.

 

Helen was born Helen Redfern in Kensington in 1882.  Her father was Clement Cotterell Redfern, a barrister and her mother was Margaret A.B. Redfern.  Helen had a half-sister called Clara, who was born in 1871 and a sister called Joan, who was born in 1882.

Helen married Charles James Lanyon, great-grandson of Sir Charles Lanyon the Irish architect, on 23^rd August 1902. In his obituary in 1940, Charles's wife Helen was described as the “distinguished poet” and mention was made of her poems about the Antrim Glens and her collection entitled “The Hill O’Dreams, and other poems” (published in Dublin by Sealy, Bryers and Walker in 1909).   The poem “At Easter” is included in that collection.  This was set to music by the composer Sir Herbert Hamilton Harty (1879 - 1941).  Hamilton Harty joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during WW1 and served in the North Sea.

Helen and her husband had a daughter called Carla Lanyon Lanyon who was also a poet and writer. Carla seems to have married Edward S Hacker in 1927 and they had a son.

In this anthology, she was described as Miss Helen Lanyon : https://archive.org/stream/bookofirishpoetr00grav/bookofirishpoetr00grav_djvu.txt

Helen Lanyon died in 1979.

With thanks to history researchers Sue Robinson of Wenches in Trenches the Roses of No Mans Land and Kate O’Mara for their help in finding out when Helen was born, was married and died.  

All we need now is a photograph of Helen Lanyon.