Rare & Fine - Harold Sinclair's Life

Friday, September 21, 2018

Harold Sinclair, Novelist 

Harold Sinclair is remembered as the author of “The Horse Soldiers”, an American Civil War novel published in 1956 that told a fictionalized story of a Union raid into Confederate territory that was inspired by the real-life events of Benjamin Grierson’s raid in 1863. Grierson’s military incursion helped create a diversion that assisted the Union victory at Vicksburg.  

Sinclair’s “The Horse Soldiers” achieved greater fame when it was made into a major motion picture of the same name in 1959 starring John Wayne and directed by John Ford. While maybe not as famous as other Civil War films such as “Gone with the Wind” or possibly even “Gettysburg”, scenes from “The Horse Soldiers” still have healthy hits on Youtube. For example, this scene has over 580,000 views. 

ISU’s Special Collections – Sinclair's Story 

While reviewing the collections available at Milner Library, we found that the Special Collections department has a series of papers, correspondence, manuscripts, and photos from Harold Sinclair’s life. Reviewing this information revealed several ups and downs in Harold Sinclair’s professional life. ISU’s collection also gives a glimpse into Sinclair’s work in relation to his community of Bloomington, IL. 

Harold Sinclair, 1941: ISU's Milner Library Special Collections

Early “Years” 

Harold Sinclair wrote a trilogy of novels in the late 1930s and early 1940s that were based around Bloomington, IL. These fictionalized novels were “American Years” (1938), “Years of Growth” (1940), and “Years of Illusion” (1941). Milner’s Special Collections contains correspondence related to these works that show both the potential for Sinclair’s writing as well as disappointment that he must have experienced. There are letters from editor Harry Maule to Sinclair during the summer of 1938 that discuss movie rights for a potential film based on “American Years” as well as interest from LIFE magazine to feature a story about Bloomington, IL, as it relates to the novel. As exciting as those letters must have been, the book was not made into a film and Maule followed up with Sinclair that the LIFE opportunity had fallen through. The letters also reveal some discussions about potential libel issues related to how real-life people from Bloomington were presented in “American Years”. 

“I hope that you won’t give up” 

By the early to mid 1950s, Harold Sinclair appears to have been facing a professional crisis. Many of his writings were being turned down for publishing. Milner’s Special Collections has a series of letters from hardware companies responding to his request for work in their stores, as he had some experience working in hardware years earlier. Sinclair was reaching a tipping point on whether to abandon writing as a career.  

Milner’s collection include letters from Kenneth Littauer, Sinclair’s agent, sympathizing with his client’s rough patch in getting published and imploring Sinclair to not yet give up writing. Littauer also bemoans the current state of the publishing industry and how it operates against Sinclair’s style.  

"In general, I know of nothing very constructive to tell you... The demand is for stories of what is contemporary, what is youthful, what is glamorous, what is banal. I am sorry. I did not create the fashion, and I detest it, but there it is". - Littauer to Sinclair, August 25th, 1954.

A later letter, from January 1955, reveals some relief from Ken Littauer that Sinclair has not yet given up and was in the process of writing a new novel. Littauer ends his letter with "So, let us limp along as we have been doing... My hope is that your luck will turn one of these days. At any rate, it can get no worse". 

The Horse Soldiers 

Harold Sinclair's luck did turn, and he ended up writing the novel which defined his impact on American literature and cinema. “The Horse Soldiers” was picked up to be made into a movie, directed by the legendary John Ford, and starring superstar John Wayne and William Holden. Noted of interest in Milner’s collections is a Pantagraph newspaper feature announcing that the novel was being made into a motion picture. The Pantagraph piece announced that the famous actor Clark Gable would be cast as the film’s lead, rather than eventual star John Wayne. 

Milner also has some interesting memorabilia related to the premiere of “The Horse Soldiers” in Bloomington, IL. The library’s collections include a special ticket to the gala premiere as well as a Pantagraph ad    about the film showing at the Castle Theatre in Bloomington. The Castle is today a popular music venue in Bloomington-Normal, but in the past showed feature films. Of dubious note in the newspaper ad for the film is a description that the movie is “in the Romantic Tradition and Grandeur of ‘The Birth of a Nation’”. Few people today likely would embrace “The Birth of a Nation” in a similar manner, given that famous film’s infamous racism. 

John Wayne facing off with William Holden at the Castle

Pantagraph Obituary 

Milner’s Special Collections also include a copy of Sinclair’s obituary from 1966. He was relatively young, at 59 years of age. The obituary contains a succinct summary of his life and work.  If interested, additional information about Harold Sinclair can be found through the McLean County Museum of History and the Northern Illinois University library.