Margaret St. Clair

Margaret St. Clair (17 February 1911 – 22 November 1995) was an American fantasy and science fiction writer, who also wrote under the pseudonyms Idris Seabright and (on one occasion) Wilton Hazzard.

Biography

St. Clair was born as Eva Margaret Neeley in Hutchinson, Kansas. Her father, US Representative George A. Neeley, died when Margaret was seven, but left her mother well provided for. With no siblings, Margaret recalled her childhood as "rather a lonely and bookish one."

When she was seventeen, she and her mother moved to California. In 1932, after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, she married writer Eric St. Clair. In 1934 she earned a Master of Arts in Greek Classics. A letter to the editor published in the June 1934 issue of Weird Tales provides insight into her tastes as a reader:The prospect of another story by Edmond Hamilton moves me to hysterical outcry...His style is nothing but exclamation marks; his idea of drama is something involving a fantastic number of light-speeds...He is science-fiction at its worst...Things like "Shambleau" [by C.L. Moore] are what I like. As long as WT prints stories by Clark Ashton Smith, I'll keep on reading it. His tales have a rounded jewel-like self-containedness that is, artistically, a delight...And Smith's drawings are, I think, by far the best in the magazine...In conclusion, Jules de Grandin is a pain in the neck.

In her rare autobiographical writings, St. Clair revealed few details of her personal life, but interviews with some who knew her indicate that she and her husband were well-traveled (including some visits to nudist colonies), were childless by choice, and in 1966 were initiated into Wicca by Raymond Buckland, taking the craft names Froniga and Weyland.

The St. Clairs eventually moved from El Sobrante to a house on the coast near Point Arena, "where every window had an ocean view."

Three of her short stories were adapted for television. "Mrs. Hawk" was filmed as "The Remarkable Mrs. Hawk" for the 1961 season of Thriller, with Jo Van Fleet in the title role. "The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes" (1950) and "Brenda" (1954) were filmed as segments of the 1971 season of Rod Serling's Night Gallery.

St. Clair wrote only a handful of stories in the mystery genre, but one of them, The Perfectionist (1946), was widely reprinted and translated, and served as the basis for the play A Dash of Bitters by Reginald Denham and Conrad Sutton Smith. The editor of The Crystal Well called Sign of the Labrys "an occult classic," St. Clair's research into witchcraft led to her friendship with Raymond Buckland, who recalled the St. Clairs as "absolutely wonderful people, very warm and loving."

St. Clair's last three novels comprise a loose trilogy, all having in common a near-future setting along the coast of Northern California, and elements of Wicca. In The Dolphins of Altair (1967), dolphins and three human compatriots stage a war on mankind by creating earthquakes and polar melting. In The Shadow People (1969), a young male narrator in Berkeley descends into a mysterious underworld to rescue his abducted girlfriend. The Dancers of Noyo (1973) draws on Pomo lore as a young male narrator in a California largely depopulated by plague goes on a "Grail Journey" along Highway 101. In these last two novels, the narrator's quest climaxes in an experience of transcendent enlightenment.

St. Clair left two novels uncompleted at her death.

Legacy

From the outset of her career, St. Clair was aware of her role as a woman writing in a male-dominated field. An article she wrote for Writer's Digest in 1947, about selling stories to the science fiction market, begins: "Why is science fiction fun to write? At first blush, it doesn't seem attractive, particularly for a woman." When the World Science Fiction Convention was held in Oakland in 1954, the Oakland Tribune highlighted St. Clair as a local author by asking her to provide a "menu of the future." The back cover of her 1963 paperback novel Sign of the Labrys declared in large capital letters, "Women Are Writing Science-Fiction!" and continued: "Women are closer to the primitive than men. They are conscious of the moon-pulls, the earth-tides. They possess a buried memory of humankind's obscure and ancient past which can emerge to uniquely color and flavor a novel. Such a woman is Margaret St. Clair…."

St. Clair's pioneering role as a woman writing science fiction was noted by Eric Leif Davin in his book Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965.

The Margaret St. Clair Papers are archived at the University of California, Riverside.

Ramsey Campbell has described St. Clair's work as "startlingly original" and argues it has "yet to be fully appreciated".

The Shadow People and Sign of the Labrys are referenced in Appendix N of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide as an influence on Gary Gygax.

Works

Novels The Green Queen (1956) Agent of the Unknown (1956) The Games of Neith (1960) Sign of the Labrys (1963) Message from the Eocene (1964) The Dolphins of Altair (1967) The Shadow People (1969) The Dancers of Noyo (1973)

Story collections Three Worlds of Futurity (1964) Change the Sky and Other Stories (1974) The Best of Margaret St. Clair (1985) The Hole in the Moon and Other Tales (2019) A Compendium of Margaret St. Clair (2020)

Short stories (partial list) "The Perfectionist" (1946) "Rocket to Limbo" (1946) "Super Whost," an Oona and Jick story (1947) "The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes" (1950) "Mrs. Hawk" (1950) "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" (1951) "Brightness Falls from the Air" (1951) "The Bird" (1951) "An Egg a Month from All Over" (1952) "The Goddess on the Street Corner" (1953) "Brenda" (1954) "Personal Monster" (1955) "Horrer Howce" (1956) "Lochinvar" (Galaxy Science Fiction, August 1961) "An Old Fashioned Bird Christmas" (Galaxy, December 1961) "Roberta" (Galaxy, October 1962)