Rose Macaulay

Rose Macaulay (1881-1958). Pencil sketch by J. Burlinson. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Dame Emilie Rose Macaulay DBE (1 August 1881 - 30 October 1958) was an English poet and novelist. She published 35 books, mostly novels, but also biographies and travel writing.

Life

Youth and education

Macaulay was born in Rugby, Warwickshire, the daughter of George Campbell Macaulay, a classical scholar, and his wife, Grace Mary (Conybeare). Her father was descended in the male-line directly from the Macaulay family of Lewis.

She was educated at Oxford High School for Girls and read Modern History at Somerville College at Oxford University.

Career

Macaulay began writing her debut novel, Abbots Verney (published 1906), after leaving Somerville and while living with her parents at Ty Isaf, near Aberystwyth, in Wales. Later novels include The Lee Shore (1912), Potterism (1920), Dangerous Ages (1921), Told by an Idiot (1923), And No Man's Wit (1940), The World My Wilderness (1950), and The Towers of Trebizond (1956). Her non-fiction work includes They Went to Portugal, Catchwords and Claptrap, a biography of Milton, and Pleasure of Ruins.

During World War I Macaulay worked in the British Propaganda Department, after some time as a nurse and later as a civil servant in the War Office. She pursued a romantic affair with Gerald O'Donovan, a writer and former Jesuit priest, from 1918 until his death in 1942. During the interwar period she was a sponsor of the Peace Pledge Union. Her London flat was utterly destroyed in the Blitz, and she had to rebuild her life and library from scratch, as documented in the semi-autobiographical short story, "Miss Anstruther's Letters", which was published in 1942.

She died on 30 October 1958, aged 77.

Writing

Macaulay was never a simple believer in "mere Christianity," and her writings reveal a more complex, mystical sense of the divine. That said, she did not return to the Anglican church until 1953; she had been an ardent secularist before and, while religious themes pervade her novels, previous to her conversion she often treats Christianity satirically, for instance in Going Abroad and The World My Wilderness.

The Towers of Trebizond, Macaulay's final novel, is generally regarded as her masterpiece. Strongly autobiographical, it treats with wistful humour and deep sadness the attractions of mystical Christianity, and the irremediable conflict between adulterous love and the demands of the Christian faith.

Quotations

• From The Towers of Trebizond: "Adultery is a meanness and a stealing, a taking away from someone what should be theirs, a great selfishness, and surrounded and guarded by lies lest it should be found out. And out of meanness and selfishness and lying flow love and joy and peace beyond anything that can be imagined."

• Opening line of The Towers of Trebizond, cited by librarian Nancy Pearl in "Famous First Words: A Librarian Shares Favorite Literary Opening Lines," [1] hosted by Steve Inskeep on NPR's Morning Edition, September 8, 2004, as an example among "some notable opening lines that have made Pearl's heart pound": "'Take my camel, dear,' said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass."
• From Staying with Relations. Discussing the coat worn by a visitor, a character remarks, "Is rabbit fur disgusting because it's cheap, or is it cheap because it's disgusting?"

Recognition

Macauley received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1956 for The Towers of Trebizond.

She was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) on 31 December 1957 in the 1958 New Years Honours.

Publications

Poetry

• The Two Blind Countries. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1914.
• Three Days. London: Constable, 1919; New York: Dutton, 1919.
• Rose Macaulay. London: Ernest Benn (Augustan Books of English Poetry), 1926.

Novels

• Abbots Verney: A novel. London: John Murray, 1906.
• The Furnace. London: John Murray, 1907.
• The Secret River. London: John Murray, 1909.
• The Valley Captives. London: John Murray, 1911.
• Views and Vagabonds. London: John Murray, 1912.
• The Lee Shore. London, Toronto, & New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1912.
• The Making of a Bigot. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1914.
• Non-Combatants and Others. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1916.
• What Not: A Prophetic Comedy. London: Constable, 1918.
• Potterism: A tragi-farcical tract. London: Collins, 1920; New York: Boni & Liveright, 1920.
• Dangerous Ages. London: Collins, 1921; New York: Boni & Liveright, 1921.
• Mystery At Geneva: An improbable tale of singular happenings. London: Collins, 1922; New York: Boni & Liveright, 1923.
• Told by an Idiot. London: Collins, 1923; New York: Boni & Liveright, 1923.
• Orphan Island. London: Collins, 1924; New York: Boni & Liveright, 1925.
• Crewe Train. London: Collins, 1926; New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926.
• Keeping Up Appearances. London: Collins, 1928.
• Daisy and Daphne. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1928.
• Staying with Relations. London: Collin, 1930; New York: Liveright, 1930.
• They Were Defeated. London: Collins, 1932.
• The Shadow Flies. New York & London: Harper, 1932.
• Going Abroad. London: Collins, 1934; New York: Harper, 1934.
• I Would Be Private. London: Collins, 1937; New York: Harper, 1937.
• And No Man's Wit. London: Collins, 1940; Boston: Little, Brown, 1940.
• The World My Wilderness. London: Collins, 1950; Boston: Little, Brown, 1950.
• The Towers of Trebizond. London: Collins, 1956; New York: Farrar, Straus, & Cudahy, 1956.

Non-Fiction

• A Casual Commentary (essays). London: Methuen, 1925.
• Catchwords and Claptrap. London: Hogarth Press, 1926.
• Some Religious Elements in English Literature. London: Hogarth Press, 1931.
• Milton. London: Duckworth, 1934; New York: Harper, 1935.
• The Minor Pleasures of Life. London: Gollancz, 1934; New York: Harper, 1935.
• Personal Pleasures. London: Gollancz, 1935; New York: Macmillan, 1936.
• An Open Letter. London: Collins / Peace Pledge Union, 1937.
• Let Us Honour Peace (contributor). London: Cobden-Sanderson, 1937.
• The Writings of E.M. Forster. London: Hogarth Press, 1938; New York: Harcourt Brace, 1938.
• Life Among the English. London: Collins, 1942.
• Southey in Portugal. London: Nicholson & Watson, 1945.
• They Went to Portugal. London: Cape, 1946.
• Evelyn Waugh. London: Horizon, 1946.
• Fabled Shore: From the Pyrenees to Portugal. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1949; New York: Farrar, Straus, 1949.
• Pleasure of Ruins. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1953.
• They Went to Portugal Too (edited by L.C. Taylor). Manchester, UK: Carcanet Press, 1990. (The second part of They Went to Portugal, not published with the 1946 edition because of paper restrictions.)

Letters

• Letters to a Friend, 1950-1952 (edited by Constance Babington Smith). London: Collins, 1961; New York: Atheneum, 1961.
• Last letters to a Friend, 1952-1958 (edited by Constance Babington Smith). London: Collins, 1962; New York: Atheneum, 1963.
• Letters to a Sister edited by Constance Babington Smith). London: Collins, 1964; New York: Atheneum, 1964.
• Dearest Jean: Rose Macaulay's letters to a cousin (edited by Martin Ferguson Smith). Manchester, UK, & New York: Manchester University Press, 2011.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

Rose Macauley Reads Four Poems From the Dominion Set of Authors reading their own Works

• List of British poets

References

• Babington Smith, Constance (1972). Rose Macaulay. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-211720-7. 
• Bensen, Alice R. (1969). Rose Macaulay. New York: Twayne Publishers. 
• Crawford, Alice (1995). Paradise Pursued: The Novels of Rose Macaulay. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 0-8386-3573-3. 
• Emery, Jane (1991). Rose Macaulay: A Writer's Life. London: J. Murray. ISBN 0-7195-4768-7. 
• Fromm, Gloria G. (October 1986). "The Worldly and Unwordly Fortunes of Rose Macaulay". The New Criterion 5 (2): 38–44. 
• LeFanu, Sarah (2003). Rose Macaulay. London: Virago. 
• Moore, Judith (November 15, 1978). "Rose Macaulay: A Model for Christian Feminists". Christian Century 95 (37): 1098–1101. 
• Passty, Jeanette N. (1988). Eros and Androgyny: The Legacy of Rose Macaulay. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-8386-3284-X. 

Fonds

• Archival material relating to Rose Macaulay listed at the UK National Register of Archives

External links

Poems

• "The Devourers" in A Book of Women's Verse
• "Many Sisters to Many Brothers"
• Rose Macaulay at PoemHunter (4 poems)

Books

• Works by Rose Macaulay at Project Gutenberg
• Rose Macauley at the Online Books Page
• Rose Macaulay at Amazon.com
• Works by or about Rose Macaulay in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Audio / video

• Rose Macaulay poems at YouTube

About

• Rose Macaulay at Spartacus Educational
• Macaulay, Rose (1881-1958) at Encyclopedia.com
• review of Rose Macauley by Sarah LeFanu at The Guardian
• Rose Macaulay in the Great War
• Rose Macaulay's poems, Great War Fiction
• Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay reviewed at Bookslut