May Sinclair

Born Mary Amelia St. Clair in Rock Ferry, Cheshire, on August 24, 1863, she wrote under the name May Sinclair and became one of the most distinctive British writers of her generation. She published widely across novels, short stories, poetry, criticism, and philosophy, and was especially admired for fiction that explored inner life with unusual depth.

Sinclair is often remembered for helping shape the psychological novel. She was also engaged in the literary and political debates of her time: she supported women's suffrage, wrote criticism that championed newer writers, and took a serious interest in philosophy and psychoanalysis. Her best-known books include The Divine Fire, The Three Sisters, The Life and Death of Harriett Frean, and the supernatural collection Uncanny Stories.

Her reputation faded for a time after her death in Bierton, Buckinghamshire, on November 14, 1946, but readers and scholars have continued to rediscover her. Today she stands out as a writer who connected Victorian traditions with literary modernism, bringing intelligence, feeling, and a restless curiosity to everything she wrote.