He was introduced to
Dante Gabriel Rossetti by
Sir Noel Paton, and joined the Rossetti literary group; which included
Hall Caine,
Philip Bourke Marston and Swinburne. He
married his cousin Elizabeth Sharp in 1884, and devoted himself to writing full-time from 1891, travelling widely. Also about this time, he developed an intensely romantic attachment to
Edith Wingate Rinder, another writer of the consciously Celtic Edinburgh circle surrounding
Patrick Geddes and "The Evergreen". It was to Rinder ("EWR") he attributed the inspiration for his writings as "Fiona Macleod" thereafter, and to whom he dedicated his first Macleod novel ("Pharais") in 1894. Sharp had a complex and ambivalent relationship with
W. B. Yeats during the 1890s, as a central tension in the
Celtic Revival. Yeats initially found Macleod acceptable and Sharp not, and later fathomed their identity. Sharp found the dual personality an increasing strain. On occasions when it was necessary for "Fiona Macleod" to write to someone unaware of the dual identity, Sharp would dictate the text to his sister (Mary Beatrice Sharp), whose handwriting would then be passed off as Fiona's manuscript.
Hermeticism During his Macleod period, Sharp was a member of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In August 1892, he published what became the only issue of the
Pagan Review, in which he, under a set of pen names (including "W. H. Brooks", "W. S. Fanshawe", "George Gascoigne", "Willand Dreeme", "Lionel Wingrave", "James Marazion", "Charles Verleyne", and "Wm. Windover") argued for the establishment of a
neo-paganism which would abolish gender inequality. The review was received negatively; among other things, critics wrote that its paganism was far removed from the pagan writings of the ancient world. The
Saturday Review wrote: ==Death==