The Helpmate

"The Helpmate" by May Sinclair is a novel written in the early 20th century. The story revolves around Anne Majendie, a newly married woman who is grappling with the emotional fallout of her husband's past indiscretions, particularly his connection to a notorious woman named Lady Cayley. As Anne navigates her feelings of love, betrayal, and obligation, the novel delves into themes of faith, identity, and the complexities of marriage. At the start of the story, we find Anne awake in theearly hours of the morning, consumed by thoughts of Lady Cayley and the revelation of her husband's past. This moment is marked by Anne's painful introspection as she struggles to reconcile her love for Walter with the shock of his infidelity. As the narrative unfolds, their initial intimate connection begins to fracture, revealing the profound emotional and moral challenges they face. The opening sets the stage for a deeper exploration of their relationship as Anne's struggle to understand her position as both a devoted wife and a woman grappling with her own sense of self-worth unfolds. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

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. She once dressed up as a demure, rebel Jane Austen for a suffrage fundraising event. 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 (1915–1967), in The Egoist, April 1918.