May Sarton

In
1945 she met her partner for the next thirteen years, Judy Matlack, in
Santa Fe, New Mexico. They separated in 1956, when Sarton's father died
and Sarton moved to Nelson, New Hampshire. Honey in the Hive (1988) is
about their relationship.

This is the ninety-second post in a series highlighting the best gay and
lesbian authors from the 20th century (with a few before and after that
period) who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the history of
gay people telling what life is, and was, during an important time of
history.

May
Sarton is the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton (3 May 1912– 16 July
1995), an American poet, novelist, and memoirist. Many of her works
reflect the lesbian experience.

Biography

Sarton was born in Wondelgem, Belgium. Her parents were science
historian George Sarton and his wife, the English artist Mabel Eleanor
Elwes. In 1915, her family moved to Boston, Massachusetts. She went to
school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and started theatre lessons in her
late teens.

Sarton later moved to York, Maine. She died of breast cancer on 16 July 1995. She is buried in Nelson, New Hampshire

Works and themes   

When Sarton published her more openly lesbian novel Mrs. Stevens Hears
the Mermaids Singing in 1965, Sarton feared, rightly, that writing so
openly about lesbianism would lead to a diminution of the previously
established value of her work. "The fear of homosexuality is so great
that it took courage to write Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing,"
she wrote in Journal of Solitude 1973, "to write a novel about a woman
homosexual who is not a sex maniac, a drunkard, a drug-taker, or in any
way repulsive, to portray a homosexual who is neither pitiable nor
disgusting, without sentimentality ..."{Journal of Solitude, 1973.
Pg.90-91}

Bibliography
Poetry books
Encounter in April (1937)
Inner Landscape
The Lion and the Rose
The Land of Silence
In Time Like Air
Cloud, Stone, Sun, Vine
A Private Mythology
As Does New Hampshire
A Grain of Mustard Seed
A Durable Fire
Collected Poems, 1930-1973
Selected Poems of May Sarton (edited by Serena Sue Hilsinger and Lois Brynes)
Halfway to Silence
Letters from Maine
Coming Into Eighty (1994) Winner of the Levinson Prize
May Sarton's Well (edited by Edith Royce Schade)

Nonfiction
I Knew a Phoenix: Sketches for an Autobiography
Plant Dreaming Deep
Journal of a Solitude
A World of Light
The House by the Sea
Recovering: A Journal
At Seventy: A Journal
Writings on Writings
After the Stroke
May Sarton: A Self-Portrait
Encore: A Journal of the Eightieth Year