Sidney McCall (March 8, 1865 – January 11, 1954), born Mary McNeill, later Mary McNeil Fenollosa, was an American novelist and poet. Several of her novels were adapted into films.

This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2021)

Sidney McCall
Sidney McCall, from a 1907 publication
Born	Mary McNeill (1865-03-08)March 8, 1865 Wilcox County, Alabama, C.S.
Died	January 11, 1954(1954-01-11) (aged 88) Montrose, Alabama, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American

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. She later married Ledyard Scott in Tokyo. However, the marriage was not a happy one and she divorced Scott and returned to the United States in 1892. In 1895 she married Ernest Fenollosa, an American art historian of Japanese art, professor of philosophy and political economy.[1]

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.[2]

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.[3]

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.