Sidney McCall (March 8, 1865January 11, 1954), born Mary McNeill, later Mary McNeil Fenollosa, was an American novelist and poet. Several of her novels were adapted into films.
Biography
McCall was born Mary McNeill (later dropping one of the l's) in Wilcox County, Alabama, to William Stoddard McNeill, a Confederate Army lieutenant from Mobile, Alabama, and Laura Sibley. McCall was the oldest of five children.
At the age of 18 she married Ludolph Chester who died two years later, leaving her with an infant child. She received a proposal of marriage of marriage from W. Ledyard Scott, a former suitor then serving as a professor of English and Latin at Zoshikwan College in Kagoshima, Japan. After sailing to Tokyo, she married Scott in 1890. However, the marriage was not a happy one and in 1892, she divorced Scott and returned to the United States, now with two children.
In 1895 while working at the Asian art division of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, she became an assistant to Ernest Fenollosa, a renowned American expert on Japanese art and culture. The two became romantically involved, and Fenollosa divorced his first wife, causing a social scandal in Boston. Forced to leave his post at the museum, Fenollosa moved with Mary to New York, but the couple returned to Japan in 1897 following a long honeymoon cruise.
Selected works
Out of the Nest: A Flight of Verses (1899) poetry, under her own name
Truth Dexter (1901) novel, as Sidney McCall
Hiroshige, the Artist of Mist, Snow and Rain (1901) essay, under her own name
The Breath of the Gods : A Japanese Romance of To-day (1905), as Sidney McCall
The Dragon Painter (1906) under her own name
Red Horse Hill (1909) novel, as Sidney McCall
Foreword to Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design (1912) by Ernest Fenollosa* Blossoms from a Japanese Garden: A Book of Child-Verses (1913) poetry, under her own name The Strange Woman (1914) novel, as Sidney McCall Ariadne of Allan Water (1914) novel, as Sidney McCall The Stirrup Latch (1915) novel, as Sidney McCall Sunshine Beggars (1918) novel, as Sidney McCall Christopher Laird (1919) novel, as Sidney McCall
Mary Fenollosa was also responsible for the posthumous completion, checking and publication of her late husband's work Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art.
Films
The Breath of the Gods is based on her novel of the same name. The Eternal Mother, a lost 1917 silent film, is based on her Red Horse Hill. The Dragon Painter (1919) is based on her novel The Dragon Painter.
References
Further reading
Mary McNeil Fenollosa, Encyclopaedia of Alabama
Delaney, Caldwell. "Mary McNeil Fenollosa, An Alabama Woman of Letters." Alabama Review 16.3 (1965): 163–173. All Poetry: Poems by Mary McNeil Fenollosa