Mary MacLane

Mary MacLane (May 1, 1881 – c. August 6, 1929) was a controversial Canadian-born American 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 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 uncontrollable, a reputation she nurtured, and was openly bisexual as well as a vocal feminist. In her writings, she compared herself to another frank young memoirist, Marie Bashkirtseff, who died a few years after MacLane was born, and H. L. Mencken called her "the Butte Bashkirtseff".

Writing and film

In 1901, MacLane wrote her first book, which she originally titled I Await the Devil's Coming. Prior to the manuscript's printing the following year, MacLane's publisher, Herbert S. Stone & Company, altered the title to The Story of Mary MacLane. The book proved to be an immediate success, especially among young women, selling over 100,000 copies during its first month of release.

Her second book, My Friend Annabel Lee, was published by Stone in 1903. More experimental in style than her debut book, it was not as sensational, though MacLane was said to have made a fairly large amount of money.

Her final book, I, Mary Maclane: A Diary of Human Days was published by Frederick A. Stokes in 1917 and sold moderately well but may have been overshadowed by America's recent entry into World War I.

In 1917, she wrote and starred in the 90-minute autobiographical silent film titled Men Who Have Made Love to Me, Published in thirty languages, her first and most famous work engendered several parodies.

Influence

Among the numerous authors who referenced, parodied, or answered MacLane were Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Harriet Monroe, lawyer Clarence Darrow, Ring Lardner Jr., Sherwood Anderson and Daniel Clowes in Ice Haven. Gertrude Sanborn published an optimistic riposte to MacLane's 1917 I, Mary MacLane under the title I, Citizen of Eternity (1920).

Personal life MacLane had always chafed, or felt "anxiety of place",

In 2014, the publisher of Tender Darkness (1993) published an expanded anthology titled Human Days: A Mary MacLane Reader (with a Foreword by Bojana Novakovic).

In 2011, Novakovic wrote and performed "The Story of Mary MacLane – By Herself" in Melbourne, Australia, which was subsequently staged in Sydney, Australia in 2012.

In the 2010s, MacLane's first book was translated into French, Danish, and Spanish. Reclam published a German edition of I Await the Devil's Coming in 2020, followed by 2021 editions of My Friend Annabel Lee and I, Mary MacLane.