Mary MacLane was a controversial Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

-born American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 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

Bisexuality

Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...

 as well as a vocal feminist

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

. In her writings, she compared herself to another frank young memoirist, Marie Bashkirtseff

Marie Bashkirtseff

Marie Bashkirtseff was a Ukrainian-born diarist, painter and sculptor....

, who died a few years after MacLane was born, and H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...

 called her, "the Butte Bashkirtseff."

Early life and popularity

MacLane was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 in 1881, but her family moved to the Red River area of Minnesota, settling in Fergus Falls, which her father helped develop. After her father's death in 1889, her mother remarried a family friend and lawyer, H. Gysbert Klenze, and soon after the family moved to Montana

Montana

Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

, first settling in Great Falls

Great Falls, Montana

Great Falls is a city in and the county seat of Cascade County, Montana, United States. The population was 58,505 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Great Falls, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Cascade County...

 and finally in Butte

Butte, Montana

Butte is a city in Montana and the county seat of Silver Bow County, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. As of the 2010 census, Butte's population was 34,200...

, where Klenze drained the family fund pursuing mining and other ventures. She spent the remainder of her life in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. MacLane began writing published material for her school paper in 1898. From the beginning, her writing was characterized by a direct, fiery and highly individualistic style. She was, however, also strongly influenced by such American regional realists as John Townsend Trowbridge

John Townsend Trowbridge

John Townsend Trowbridge was an American author born in Ogden, New York, USA, to Windsor Stone Trowbridge and Rebecca Willey...

 (with whom she exchanged a few letters), Maria Louise Pool

Maria Louise Pool

Maria Louise Pool was an American writer.-Biography:She was born in Rockland, Massachusetts to Elias Pool and Lydia Lane. She attended the public school of the town , and later taught school for two years...

, and Hamlin Garland

Hamlin Garland

Hannibal Hamlin Garland was an American novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers.- Biography :...

.

At the age of 19 in 1902, MacLane published her first book, The Story of Mary MacLane. It sold 100,000 copies in the first month and was popular among young girls, but was pilloried by conservative

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

 critics and readers, and lightly ridiculed by H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...

. Rather than embodied she had always chafed, or felt, "anxiety of place," at living in Butte, which was a mining town far off from the centers of culture, and used the money from her first book's sales of this book to travel to Chicago, then Massachusetts, settling for a time in Rockland, Massachusetts

Rockland, Massachusetts

Rockland is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The 2010 census records its population at 17,489. As of December 31, 2009, there are 11,809 registered voters in the community.-History:...

 from 1903–1908 and then in Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...

 from 1908–1909, where she continued writing and, by her own account, living a decadent and Bohemian

Bohemian

A Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...

 existence. She was close friends with feminist writer Inez Haynes Irwin

Inez Haynes Irwin

Inez Haynes Irwin was an American feminist author, journalist, member of the National Women's Party, and president of the Authors Guild. Many of her works were published under her former name Inez Haynes Gillmore. She wrote over 40 books and was active in the suffragist movement in the early 1900s...

, who is mentioned in MacLane's private correspondence and appears in some of MacLane's 1910 newspaper writing in a Butte paper.

Some critics have suggested that even by today's standards, MacLane's writing is raw, honest, unflinching, self-aware, sensual and extreme. She wrote openly about egoism

Egotism

Egotism is "characterized by an exaggerated estimate of one's intellect, ability, importance, appearance, wit, or other valued personal characteristics" – the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself....

 and her own self-love, about sexual attraction and love for other women

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

, and even about her desire to marry the Devil

Devil

The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...

.

In 1917 she wrote and starred in an autobiographical silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 titled Men Who Have Made Love to Me - now believed to be lost to time.

Among the numerous authors who referenced, parodied or answered MacLane was Gertrude Sanborn

Gertrude Sanborn

Gertrude Sanborn was an American author who lived in Milwaukee. She attained some notice for her novel Veiled Aristocrats , which dealt with race relations more directly than was fashionable at the time. The novel belonged to the genre of "passing" stories, of African Americans passing for white,...

, who published an optimistic riposte to MacLane's 1917 memoir I, Mary MacLane under the title I, Citizen of Eternity (1920).

MacLane died in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 sometime in early August 1929, aged 48. She was soon forgotten and her body of prose remained out of print until late 1993, when The Story of Mary MacLane and some of her newspaper feature work was republished in an anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 titled Tender Darkness in 1993.

Human Days: A Mary MacLane Reader

In January 2011, the publisher of Tender Darkness (1993) announced forthcoming publication of an integrated complete-works anthology and biographical study of MacLane. The first volume, Human Days: A Mary MacLane Anthology (with Foreword by Bojana Novakovic

Bojana Novakovic

Bojana Novakovic is a Serbian Australian actress who works in Australia and the United States.-Early and personal life:Novakovic was born in 1981 in Serbia. She moved to Australia in 1988, at the age of seven. Novakovic was initially interested in becoming a social worker or doctor, but after a...

), is scheduled for publication in late 2011. The second volume, A Quite Unusual Intensity of Life: A Mary MacLane Companion, also issued under the Petrarca Press logo, is to be published in late 2012. The two volumes are to total 1200+ pages.

Books

• The Story of Mary MacLane (1902)
• My Friend, Annabel Lee (1903)
• I, Mary MacLane: A Diary of Human Days (1917)
• Tender Darkness (reprint anthology) (1993)
• The Story of Mary MacLane and Other Writings (reprint anthology) (1999)
• Human Days: A Mary MacLane Anthology (Foreword by Bojana Novakovic) (late 2011)
• A Quite Unusual Intensity of Life: A Mary MacLane Companion (forthcoming, late 2012)

Selected articles

• Consider Thy Youth and Therein (1899)
• Mary MacLane at Newport (1902)
• Mary MacLane on Wall Street (1902)
• Mary MacLane in Little Old New York (1902)
• On Marriage (1902)
• Mary MacLane Soliloquizes on Scarlet Fever (1910)
• Mary MacLane Meets the Vampire on the Isle of Treacherous Delights (1910)
• Mary MacLane Wants a Vote - For the Other Woman (1910)
• Woman and the Cigarette (1911)
• Mary MacLane Says - (1911)
• Mary MacLane on Marriage (1917)

Further reading

• Leslie A. Wheeler, "Montana's Shocking 'Lit'ry Lady'", Montana The Magazine of Western History, 27 (Summer 1977), 20-33.
• Carolyn J. Mattern, "Mary MacLane: A Feminist Opinion", Montana The Magazine of Western History, 27 (Autumn 1977), 54-63.
• Barbara Miller, "'Hot as Live Embers--Cold as Hail': The Restless Soul of Butte's Mary MacLane", Montana Magazine, September 1982, 50-53.
• Virginia R. Terris, "Mary MacLane--Realist", The Speculator, Summer 1985, 42-49.

External links

• "Mary MacLane's Story to be Told At Last" - 2011 press release for forthcoming multi-volume set
• Introduction to Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Anthology - by Elisabeth Pruitt
• marymaclane.com - Website maintained by the publisher of Tender Darkness, Michael Brown
• Hot Love, Sexual radicals bookend the century - by Carol Lynn Mithers