The Story of Mary Maclane

by Mary MacLane

Few books in US history have provoked more outrage and debate than The Story Of Mary Maclane did when it was first published in Chicago in 1902. With unprecedented frankness, the 19 year old author revealed her utter scorn for conformity and puritanism, her refusal to accept what she regarded as the stifling boredom and pettiness of middle class life, and her passionate insistence on sexual freedom, a life of adventure and excitement. Not for nothing has she been hailed as the first 'New Woman' in literature, the first flapper and a precursor of surrealism. This lively collection features the complete text of that signature work, plus a generous selection of her other writings, reprinted here for the first time; and edited and introduced by Penelope Rosemont. Two special sections focus on her short but sensational movie career, and her long association with the city she eventually chose as her home, and includes critical appreciations of her work by other Chicago Clarence Darrow, Henry Blake Fuller and Harriet Monroe. "The Story Of Mary Maclane is little short of a miracle. No more marvelous books was ever born of a sensitive, precocious brain." [Clarence Darrow]

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Womens, Classics

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1902

About the author

Mary MacLane was a controversial Canadian-born American writer whose frank memoirs helped usher in the confessional style of autobiographical writing. MacLane was known as the "Wild Woman of Butte."

MacLane was a very popular author for her time, scandalizing the populace with her shocking bestselling first memoir and to a lesser extent her two following books. She was considered wild and uncontrolled, a reputation she nurtured, and was openly bisexual as well as a vocal feminist. In her writings, she compared herself to another frank young memoirist, Marie Bashkirtseff, who died a few years after MacLane was born, and H. L. Mencken called her "the Butte Bashkirtseff."

Reviews

[Mary]

She would have loved tumblr

[Liz]

A new favorite. The entire time I was reading The Story of Mary MacLane, I was thinking, I cannot wait to read this again. I would recommend keeping this book at your bedside, like a motel bible, so that it can be referred throughout your days.

A fascinating woman and a fascinating book. The fact that she wrote this at 19 is astounding. It is the best articulation I have read of life's simple truth: everything sucks and nothing matters. The one thing that would improve my reading experience would be a time machine, so I give my 19 year-old self a copy. Mary MacLane deserves greater attention as a great feminist mind, but also as a skilled, witty writer.

I do wish the publisher had stuck with the original title, I Await the Devil's Coming, but maybe I'm a little melodramatic sometimes. No matter. This is a wonderful book.

[Shea]

“Are there many things in this cool-hearted world so utterly exquisite as the pure love of one woman for another woman?”

Need I say more??

[molly]

this was so girl of her

[Justin]

Totes wacked out nutty pants stream of conscious manic verbal diarrhea from a proto-libertine silent picture era wannabe porn star. The world wasn't exactly her oyster. An oyster would be far too small for the likes of Ms. Mary Maclane. Self-assured, self-absorbed, and utterly unconcerned with social norms, this is either the diary of the world's most perfect narcissist, or the the magnum opus of an iconoclastic genius. Whether considered a feminist revolutionary, a literary nympho, or just a crackpot who worshiped no one but herself, her writings are memorable, even if not particularly deep.

[Alex]

The book is mostly repetitions of that the author is an unparalleled genius and philosopher, unloved by anyone, alone in this stupid world, waiting for the devil to come and give her happiness, be it of even one day. There are only a few keywords repeated all over, genius, lonely, love, happiness, stupid, devil, but she doesn't really define any of them. To know how lunatics talk, this book saves a trip to the asylum. But it is too long for sampling that experience. The only good part is that the author commands English quite well--fluent but empty writing.

[Jill]

one nutty lady!

[looneybooks79]

Nederlands / Dutch:

http://looneybooks79.blog/2026/03/12/...

De Canadees-Amerikaanse Mary MacLane, later beter gekend als 'The Wild Woman of Butte', groeit op in het mijnwerkersstadje Butte, Montana. Als negentienjarige zit ze vast in een keurslijf van de middenklasse waarbij van haar verwacht wordt dat ze trouwt en kinderen krijgt. Maar Mary verzet zich tegen dit keurslijf, gaat op zoek naar haar eigen stem en noteert, als negentienjarige, in haar dagboek dat ze wacht (er zelfs naar hunkert) tot de 'Duivel' haar komt redden. In het dagboek noteert ze haar eerlijke gevoelens en hunkeringen naar seksuele vrijheid, naar de liefde voor haar 'anemoondame' (waarin haar biseksuele gevoelens heel duidelijk worden geuit) en naar een losbreken van de moralistische en patriarchale maatschappij. De 'Duivel' waar in het dagboek naar verwezen wordt, duidt vooral op het verlangen naar seks en naar vrijheid

Door de ogen van een adolescente die zich heel duidelijk verveelt en niet op haar plaats voelt in het stadje Butte, kijken we mee en lezen we haar verlangens en haar vooruitstrevende ideeën. Idealistisch en vooral heel vrijgevochten was Mary MacLane zeker en vast. Het boek zorgde begin twintigste eeuw dan ook voor een schandaal, ondanks dat de uitgeverij de oorspronkelijke titel 'Awaiting the Devil's coming' veranderde naar 'The Story of Mary MacLane'. MacLane zelf is zich ook heel bewust dat het boek misschien zelfs nooit zal gepubliceerd worden, zoals duidelijk is in het dagboek zelf.

Het is een geweldig goed geschreven relaas, zeker vanuit het oogpunt dat Mary MacLane pas negentien(!) was toen ze dit dagboek neerpende. Maar anderzijds merk je wel dat er een heel grote jeugdigheid uitstraalt, een idealisme en vooral een rebels kantje. Het staat bol van de verwachtingen van een jonge persoon die de wereld nog helemaal niet kent en die een ideaalbeeld heeft geschapen van hoe volgens haar die (seksuele) vrijheid eruit moet zien en hoe die haar uit dat kleine stadje en haar eenzaamheid moet weten te helpen.

Haar literatuur verdween jaren na haar dood in 1929 in de vergetelheid maar in de jaren negentig werden haar boeken herontdekt en nu verscheen dus ook de Nederlandse vertaling van haar debuut.

English:

The Canadian-American writer Mary MacLane, later better known as “The Wild Woman of Butte,” grew up in the mining town of Butte. At nineteen, she found herself trapped in the confines of middle-class expectations, where marriage and motherhood were seen as her inevitable future. But Mary resisted this rigid mold. Searching for her own voice, she wrote in her diary—at just nineteen—that she was waiting (even longing) for the “Devil” to come and rescue her. In its pages she recorded her honest feelings and her yearning for sexual freedom, for love for her “anemone lady” (a phrase through which her bisexual feelings are clearly expressed), and for liberation from a moralistic and patriarchal society. The “Devil” she refers to in the diary primarily symbolizes her desire for both sex and freedom.

Through the eyes of a young woman who is unmistakably bored and deeply out of place in the town of Butte, we follow her reflections and read about her desires and strikingly progressive ideas. Mary MacLane was undoubtedly idealistic and, above all, fiercely independent. It is therefore no surprise that the book caused a scandal in the early twentieth century, even though the publisher softened the original title, I await the Devil’s Coming, changing it to The Story of Mary MacLane. MacLane herself was fully aware that the book might never even be published—a concern she openly acknowledges in the diary.

It is an exceptionally well-written account, especially considering that MacLane was only nineteen (!) when she penned these pages. At the same time, a strong sense of youthful intensity shines through: idealism, impatience, and above all a rebellious spirit. The book brims with the expectations of a young person who has yet to fully encounter the world and who has constructed an almost mythic vision of what (sexual) freedom might look like—freedom that she hopes will rescue her from the confines of that small town and from her own loneliness.

MacLane’s work faded into obscurity for many years after her death in 1929. However, in the 1990s her books were rediscovered, and a Dutch translation of her debut has now finally appeared as well.

[Ally]

someone get this woman anti-depressants, please.

if i tried to list all my favourite quotes from this book i’d just end up accidentally plagiarizing the whole thing, but i’m still gonna try to find some of my top ones:


“I have in me a quite unusual intensity of life. I can feel. I have a marvelous capacity for misery and for happiness”

“Along some lines I have gotten to the edge of the world. A step more and I fall off. I do not take the step. I stand on the edge, and I suffer. Nothing, oh, nothing on the earth can suffer like a woman young and all alone!”

“How we eager fools tread on each other’s heels, and tear each other’s hair, and scratch each other’s faces, in our furious gallop after Happiness!”

“What is wrong? What is right? What is good? What is evil? The words are merely words, with word-meanings. Truth is Love, and Love is the only Truth, and Love is the one thing out of all that is real”

“We think we progress wonderfully in the arts and sciences as one century follows another. What does it amount to? It does not teach us the all-why. It does not let us cease to wonder what it is that we are doing, where it is that we are going”

“Oh, it is a hard and bitter thing to be a woman! And why-why? Is woman so foul a creature that she must needs be purged by this infinite pain?”

“I am always alone. I might mingle with people intimately every hour of my life—still I should be alone. Always alone-alone. Not even a God to worship.”

“I want a human being to love me. I have need of it. I am starving to death for lack of it.”

[Sara Habein]

RIP Mary MacLane, you would've loved livejournal, tumblr, and AO3. We would have lost you to Poster's Madness years ago.

Mary MacLane, if you didn't know, was Winnipeg-born, but it was in Butte, Montana, where she gained notoriety as a "wild woman" who was going to write about herself and whatever else she wanted, and if that includes fanfiction about the Devil and shading Charlotte Brontë, then so be it!!

She was bisexual, feminist, angry, lonely, one child of many, breathing in mining fumes, confident, funny, complex, and unfortunately, a big Byron and Napoleon fan. You're not reading her for great literature, but I love that a Butte gal got everyone up in arms, circa 1902. #ButteAmerica

[Pam]

For this book being so short, it was hard to get through. Mary is always going on about how much of a genius she is, how miserable her life is, and how she waits for the devil to come and give her happiness. That's right, the devil. Reading this chronicle gets tedious after a while. I read it because it was referenced in Plain, Bad, Heroines, but I liked that book better.

[Roxan AlexanderArntson]

What in the turn of the century teen angst did I just read? I read, and loved, Plain Bad Heroines. They reference this book throughout PBH, so I felt that I needed to come to the source. Turns out, I did not. Plain Bad Heroines took the best parts of this book for a much better book… Read that, not this.

[chia]

I’ve never wanted to hug a woman that existed centuries before I did.

I understand you and I love you.

[Laura Trout]

I thought this was a book about Montana. It is a very small part. Mary MacLane wrote in GREAT detail about her personal feelings. Did not enjoy this at all. She was a very self centered person.

[Jordan]

mary is a little wack and probably should’ve kept the diary private

[R.K. Cowles]

3 3/4 stars

[Lori Pomerenke]

If you consider this book was written in 1901, (when women had to sit at home waiting for suitors to call on them), by a very intelligent 19 year old who was mourning the loss of her only true friend, or so she felt, the book is genius. Raw and confused emotions written down for all to see. Some parts, like beautiful poetry, other parts, anguished ravings and everything in between. I was hoping for a finale, one way or the other but not in this book. I could envision what she described in my mind which was entertaining. Enjoyed!

[Susan]

The strangest, weirdest book I have ever read. I read it because my copy was published in 1901 and I thought it was so cool to read a book that old.

[Mia McKiernan]

I love Mary MacLane she changed my life