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Divine Fire
May Sinclair was the pseudonym of Mary Amelia St. Clair (1862-1946), a popular British writer. She was known for two dozen novels, short stories and poetry. She was an active suffragist, and member of the Woman Writers' Suffrage League. She was also a significant critic, in the area of modernist poetry and prose; the term stream of consciousness, in its literary sense, is attributed to her. From 1896 she wrote professionally, to support herself and her mother, who died in 1901. She treated a number of themes relating to the position of women, and marriage. She also wrote nonfiction based on studies of philosophy, particularly German idealism. Her works sold well in the United States. Among her most famous works are: The Divine Fire (1904), Superseded (1906), The Helpmate (1907), The Judgment of Eve (1907), The Belfry (1916), The Romantic (1920), Mr. Waddington of Wyck (1921), Anne Severn and the Fieldings (1922) and Life and Death of Harriett Frean (1922).
- GenresFiction
597 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1904
4 people are currently reading
78 people want to read
About the author
May Sinclair
227 books60 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
May Sinclair was the pseudonym of Mary Amelia St. Clair, a popular British writer who wrote about two dozen novels, short stories and poetry. She was an active suffragist, and member of the Woman Writers' Suffrage League. May Sinclair was also a significant critic, in the area of modernist poetry and prose and she is attributed with first using the term stream of consciousness) in a literary context, when reviewing the first volumes of Dorothy Richardson's novel sequence Pilgrimage (1915–67), in The Egoist, April 1918.
May Sinclair was the pseudonym of Mary Amelia St. Clair, a popular British writer who wrote about two dozen novels, short stories and poetry. She was an active suffragist, and member of the Woman Writers' Suffrage League. May Sinclair was also a significant critic, in the area of modernist poetry and prose and she is attributed with first using the term stream of consciousness) in a literary context, when reviewing the first volumes of Dorothy Richardson's novel sequence Pilgrimage (1915–67), in The Egoist, April 1918.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 29, 2016
Me: 'I'm still reading a book which I started 11 days ago.'
Dad: 'That's very unlike you!'
And so it is. 'The Divine Fire' took an awfully long time to get through, but boy was it worth it. Not Sinclair's best, but a wonderful tale about the book industry, and about unconventional (in a sense) love. Her prose is absolutely lovely, as ever, and some of the passages here are resplendent and incredibly perceptive. Her characters are largely fascinating, and one cares about them immensely. Savage Keith Rickman is also one of the best character names I've come across in a long time.
Certainly one to savour.
On a more negative note, this is not at all useful for my PhD thesis (the purpose for which I read it, although I like to think I would have got to it at some point in my reading life!).
Dad: 'That's very unlike you!'
And so it is. 'The Divine Fire' took an awfully long time to get through, but boy was it worth it. Not Sinclair's best, but a wonderful tale about the book industry, and about unconventional (in a sense) love. Her prose is absolutely lovely, as ever, and some of the passages here are resplendent and incredibly perceptive. Her characters are largely fascinating, and one cares about them immensely. Savage Keith Rickman is also one of the best character names I've come across in a long time.
Certainly one to savour.
On a more negative note, this is not at all useful for my PhD thesis (the purpose for which I read it, although I like to think I would have got to it at some point in my reading life!).
September 9, 2021
Ok, so I freely admit this came to my reading list because the author is a woman and it was originally published in 1904. I needed something for that year to complete my 20th Century Women's challenge. Is that enough reason to read *any* book? If I had read the very few reviews here at GR, I might have skipped it. That would have been my loss. What is the Divine Fire of the title?
It is genius ...
I'll not lie and say this was an easy read because it isn't. The writing style is more 19th Century complex than flowing 20th Century. And there is so much angst! Sinclair proved she was able to insert a bit of humor (though not often enough).
It is genius ...
"Well, when you think you've got hold of a genius, and you take him up and stake your reputation on him—and all the time you can't be sure whether it's a spark of the divine fire or a mere flash in the pan. It happens over and over again. The burnt critic dreads the divine fire."And it is love ...
He wondered what the secret had to do with Fielding. And wondering he went away, envying him the love that kept its own divine fire burning for him on his hearth.Savage Keith Rickman had both genius and was consumed with love. Unfortunately, his genius was not immediately recognized by the critics he needed and his love was unrequited. At least that is what he believed and what he believed directed his life.
I'll not lie and say this was an easy read because it isn't. The writing style is more 19th Century complex than flowing 20th Century. And there is so much angst! Sinclair proved she was able to insert a bit of humor (though not often enough).
The library is big enough for two. It's so big that you could take a bath or do a murder at one end without anybody being aware of it at the other.I became emotionally invested in Rickman. I despaired that success would never be his. In fact, there was a time I despaired, period. For that this should be a 5-star read. And it might have been had it been even 100 pages shorter, but I simply cannot find that last star.
As for her mind, good Heavens! Had it taken him five years to discover that her mind was a cul de sac?
November 13, 2011
Enchanting book through all 597 pages! It's a love story, a literary journey and a peek into the world of the book trade from many angles. It was refreshing to meet with an heroic protagonist and not have him come to a tragic end and for him to benefit and be recognized for his "Divine Fire' (his poetic genius). The book had also a wonderful delineation of supporting characters. It's unbelievable that May Sinclair could have created this work in 1904. She was decades ahead of her time. What an imagination! I found and read a New York Times story from 1905 with details from an interview with her at that time. That was a wonderful accompaniment to the book.
April 20, 2019
A poet, a library, and an unconventional love story.
Savage Keith Rickman is a talented young poet with a classical education and a cockney accent. He wants to be a gentleman yet has a hankering for the "fugitive actuality," which drives him to drink and a fascination for a variety actress.
He also has the habit of dropping his aitches when excited, a minor foible anyone would rightly ignore today, but back then one that couldn't be overlooked by the world he wanted to belong to, the world of Lucia Harden.
Lucia is a beautiful young woman from a wealthy family, albeit one whose finances have been ruined by a profligate father. Her grandfather's library of rare books is worth more to her than the inheritance she stands to lose. She hires Rickman, whose father is a bookseller, to catalogue its contents.
There is a gulf in background and social status between the two, yet in a series of wonderful scenes during the cataloguing, a process in which Lucia assists, Sinclair establishes a powerful bond between them which goes far deeper than Rickman's attraction to her and Lucia's admiration for his poetry.
Both have a 'positively luminous sincerity' at odds with the mercantile behaviour of the other solicitous parties, such as Isaac Rickman and Horace Jewdwine, Lucia's cousin who has an interest in both her and the library. The fortunes of the library itself are skillfully interwoven with the fortunes and affections of the two lead characters.
There is also lots of the kind of talk about poetry I always enjoy. In this exchange Rickman and Lucia discuss the effect of the Lake poets' depiction of nature:
"It hasn't any reality but what we give it."
"Hasn't it?"
(A statement so sweeping challenged contradiction.)
"You think that's only my Cockney view?"
"I think it isn't Nature. It's your own idea."
"It isn't even my own idea; I bagged it from Coleridge. P'raps you'll say he muddled himself with opium till he couldn't tell which was Nature and which was Coleridge; but there was old Wordsworth, as sober as a churchwarden, and he knew. What you call my Cockney view is the view of the modern poets. They don't—they can't distinguish between Nature and the human soul. Talk of getting near to Nature—we wouldn't know Nature if we saw it now. Those everlasting poets have got so near it that they've blocked the view for themselves and everybody else."
"Really, you talk as if they were a set of trippers."
"So they are! Wordsworth was nothing but a tripper, a glorified tripper. Nature never looked the same since he ran his Excursion-train through the Lake country—special service to Tintern and Yarrow."
"This is slightly profane."
"No—it only means that if you want Nature you musn't go to the poets of Nature. They've humanized it. I wouldn't mind that, if they hadn't womanized it, too."
"That only means that they loved it," she said softly.
Ideals and circumstances force them apart. Jewdwine, a self-important magazine editor and occasional employer of Rickman, is envious of the younger man's genius and undermines his own values to manipulate their perceptions about each other. The tepid conflict between Jewdwine's public loftiness and private compromising provided the perfect contrast to the purer principles of the two leads.
This brief exchange with his father, from whom Rickman becomes estranged on a point of principal, prosaically hits at the uncertain heart of what it means to be quixotic in a commercial world:
"I don't understand your kind of conscience—Keith." There was still a touch of appeal in his utterance of his son's name.
"Perhaps not," said Keith sorrowfully. "I don't understand it myself."
What other explanation is there?
This is a very long novel, and an exceptionally good one. The central mechanisms of the plot, which hinge on the fate of the library, were brilliantly thought out, the characters genuinely grew and matured with the course of events, the prose was outstanding.
Thomas Hardy was a fan of Sinclair, entirely fitting given the high quality of the writing. One or two choices in the final quarter of the story pleased me a little less than what proceeded them.
Sinclair matched Hardy's ability to weave a rich tragedy, but lacked his implacable imperative.
Savage Keith Rickman is a talented young poet with a classical education and a cockney accent. He wants to be a gentleman yet has a hankering for the "fugitive actuality," which drives him to drink and a fascination for a variety actress.
He also has the habit of dropping his aitches when excited, a minor foible anyone would rightly ignore today, but back then one that couldn't be overlooked by the world he wanted to belong to, the world of Lucia Harden.
Lucia is a beautiful young woman from a wealthy family, albeit one whose finances have been ruined by a profligate father. Her grandfather's library of rare books is worth more to her than the inheritance she stands to lose. She hires Rickman, whose father is a bookseller, to catalogue its contents.
There is a gulf in background and social status between the two, yet in a series of wonderful scenes during the cataloguing, a process in which Lucia assists, Sinclair establishes a powerful bond between them which goes far deeper than Rickman's attraction to her and Lucia's admiration for his poetry.
Both have a 'positively luminous sincerity' at odds with the mercantile behaviour of the other solicitous parties, such as Isaac Rickman and Horace Jewdwine, Lucia's cousin who has an interest in both her and the library. The fortunes of the library itself are skillfully interwoven with the fortunes and affections of the two lead characters.
There is also lots of the kind of talk about poetry I always enjoy. In this exchange Rickman and Lucia discuss the effect of the Lake poets' depiction of nature:
"It hasn't any reality but what we give it."
"Hasn't it?"
(A statement so sweeping challenged contradiction.)
"You think that's only my Cockney view?"
"I think it isn't Nature. It's your own idea."
"It isn't even my own idea; I bagged it from Coleridge. P'raps you'll say he muddled himself with opium till he couldn't tell which was Nature and which was Coleridge; but there was old Wordsworth, as sober as a churchwarden, and he knew. What you call my Cockney view is the view of the modern poets. They don't—they can't distinguish between Nature and the human soul. Talk of getting near to Nature—we wouldn't know Nature if we saw it now. Those everlasting poets have got so near it that they've blocked the view for themselves and everybody else."
"Really, you talk as if they were a set of trippers."
"So they are! Wordsworth was nothing but a tripper, a glorified tripper. Nature never looked the same since he ran his Excursion-train through the Lake country—special service to Tintern and Yarrow."
"This is slightly profane."
"No—it only means that if you want Nature you musn't go to the poets of Nature. They've humanized it. I wouldn't mind that, if they hadn't womanized it, too."
"That only means that they loved it," she said softly.
Ideals and circumstances force them apart. Jewdwine, a self-important magazine editor and occasional employer of Rickman, is envious of the younger man's genius and undermines his own values to manipulate their perceptions about each other. The tepid conflict between Jewdwine's public loftiness and private compromising provided the perfect contrast to the purer principles of the two leads.
This brief exchange with his father, from whom Rickman becomes estranged on a point of principal, prosaically hits at the uncertain heart of what it means to be quixotic in a commercial world:
"I don't understand your kind of conscience—Keith." There was still a touch of appeal in his utterance of his son's name.
"Perhaps not," said Keith sorrowfully. "I don't understand it myself."
What other explanation is there?
This is a very long novel, and an exceptionally good one. The central mechanisms of the plot, which hinge on the fate of the library, were brilliantly thought out, the characters genuinely grew and matured with the course of events, the prose was outstanding.
Thomas Hardy was a fan of Sinclair, entirely fitting given the high quality of the writing. One or two choices in the final quarter of the story pleased me a little less than what proceeded them.
Sinclair matched Hardy's ability to weave a rich tragedy, but lacked his implacable imperative.
April 27, 2022
Show, don't tell. Clearly not the motto of this writer, she goes on and on and on and on about the state of mind of the main two characters, neither of whom are the best parts of this overlong novel. It's the minor characters who raised it to three stars for me, the appalling don turned critic and the wonderful Beaver - building her dam of trivial household items, desperate for a home, she is a wonderful creation. You really need a lot of spare time to tackle this, though.
May 19, 2025
The Divine Fire is a novel of the 1890’s and is both worth reading and difficult to get through. It is set in the world of writers, editors, and book collectors, but at its heart it is a romance that is confusing for modern readers to understand. The book concerns a talented young poet named Rickman who works for his father’s bookstore in London. He has been educated to understand the value of antique books and is put in charge of the secondhand section of the store, where the family makes most of its money. He is assigned to visit an estate where insiders have informed his father that a valuable library will soon be up for sale (because its owner is going broke). There he meets Lucia. a cool and snobbish daughter. who is fascinated by the young poet and pitches in to speed up the cataloging of the collection. As he gets to know Lucia, Rickman begins to fall in love with her and feels more and more guilty that he is cataloging this collection so that his father can swoop in to buy it when Lucia’s father goes bust (she has no idea). Lucia’s father suddenly dies in Monte Carlo and everything must be disposed of. Lucia leaves the estate and Rickman quits his job, disgusted by his father’s greed. He then moves to a boarding house in the city and lives with a motley (but kindly) group of boarders, still stinging from what he has done to Lucia. However, he sees now that a relationship with her is impossible and begins dating a girl at the house named Flosie, a simple, pretty, lower-class girl. He is not in love but plans to marry her anyway. When Lucia shows up at the boarding house as the guest of an old teacher who lives there, all of Rickman’s plans are thrown into disorder. Rickman and Flosie break up after she gets suspicious that he really wants to be with Lucia. Of course, in the end the couple who met in the library end up together after endless conversations about love, obligations, motives, and purity of heart. Sinclair was too heavily influenced by Henry James in this novel, and feels compelled (for 600 pages) to parse every emotion and motivation. Speed reading is very helpful here. What I found most interesting in Divine Fire was Sinclair’s take on the literary movements of the 90’s from Rickman’s association with the decadents (his first book is illustrated by a fictionalized Aubrey Beardsley), Sinclairs’ obsession about class in relationships, Rickman’s “genius poetry” which is Sinclair’s own mediocre early verse (these sections reminded me very much of Byatt’s Possession), and a Gissing-like examination of how writers must scramble and compromise to make a living. This is an early work by Sinclair who writes much, much better books as she matures, but it is fun to see her early influences (James and Gissing), the origins of her fascination with characters’ psychology, and how she felt about the milieu in which she started in as a writer.
May 21, 2021
This author was highly recommended by Agatha Christie in her biography. I therefore tried to read this and found it not enjoyable. The language and subjects are difficult to decifier.
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December 19, 2016Read this book for free through Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13996/...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews