William Sharp, Fiona MacLeod: A Memoir (1912)

A Scottish poet and man of letters, William Sharp (1855-1905) wrote a series of well-regarded novels representative of the Celtic Twilight school popularized by William Butler Yeats under the nom-de-plume Fiona Macleod, a pseudonym that Sharp never publicly acknowledged. Sharp even composed a fictional biography of Macleod for publication in Who’s Who and exchanged correspondence with such notables as George Meredith, Robert L. Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, and Dante G. Rossetti, sometimes as William Sharp, and sometimes as Fiona Macleod. In part two of this memoir, compiled by Sharp’s wife from his diaries and letters, the story of his dual-identity is made public and explained for the first time.