Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Rose Macaulay
-
Standard Name: Macaulay, Rose
Birth Name: Emilie Rose Macaulay
RM
was highly prolific, publishing during the earlier half of the twentieth century twenty-three novels and two volumes of poetry, as well as three books of short stories, several historical and travel narratives, and works of literary criticism. Several volumes of her personal letters have been printed. She made many appearances on the BBC
and published scores of articles. Valued perhaps chiefly for its satire and wit, her writing shows impressive political complexity and understanding, and her skill at characterisation is noteworthy. In her early works one may feel that her satire is defensive: that she uses mockery to hold off painful involvement. Her treatment of religious issues and characters demonstrates her long struggle with and engagement in established religion. She continually pokes fun at people heavily invested in causes or movements; but the choice of a cause is one of her favourite topics, sometimes handled with poignancy rather than burlesque.
The publication of her seventh novel marked her move from Heinemann
to Cassell
. Virago
reissued this novel as part of its Modern Classics series in 1981 with an introduction by Kennedy's author-daughter, Julia Birley
Textual Production
Margery Lawrence
ML
's ghost stories have been frequently anthologised. They appear in, for instance, Fifty Strangest Stories Ever Told (1937), The Virago
Book of Ghost Stories: The Twentieth Century (1987), and Vampire Stories (1993).
Clute, John, and John Grant, editors. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. St Martin’s Press.
under Lawrence, Margery
Literary responses
Rosamond Lehmann
Leonard Woolf
(in the The Nation and Athenæum on 10 September 1927), Desmond MacCarthy
, Arnold Bennett
, and Rose Macaulay
all had more or less serious reservations about the book: Macaulay used very readable...
Hastings, Selina. Rosamond Lehmann. Chatto and Windus.
240-1
politics
Marie Belloc Lowndes
The letter challenged a recent antisuffragist manifesto, and stressed three points from Prime Minister Asquith
's statement to suffragists of 14 August. The points were that women had rendered as effective service to their country...
Friends, Associates
Olivia Manning
OM
's friends included a number of fellow-writers: William Gerhardi
, Ivy Compton-Burnett
(whom she had first met before the war, at a party given by Rose Macaulay
, and whose work she deeply admired),...
Literary responses
Katherine Mansfield
After Mansfield's death, Woolf
wrote in her diary: it seemed to me there was no point in writing. Katherine won't read it.
Gunn, Kirsty. “How the Laundry Basket Squeaked”. London Review of Books, Vol.
35
, No. 7, pp. 25-6.
25
KM
appears in episodes in more than one novel by her friend...
EAR
made her first BBC
broadcast, Travel and Yachting on English Rivers, and was also heard in unrehearsed debate on issues of gender with Rose Macaulay
.
Mason, Edward J., and Tony Shryane. “My Word! (1956-1990)”. Radio Days: Whirligig: 1950’s British Radio Nostalgia.
Devlin, Polly, and E. Arnot Robertson. “Introduction”. Four Frightened People, Virago, p. vii - xix.
xvi
Friends, Associates
Naomi Royde-Smith
NRS
was a close friend of Rose Macaulay
, with whom in the immediate postwar period she shared entertaining duties at her flat, in something similar to a salon. They apparently met through Macaulay contributing...
Friends, Associates
Naomi Royde-Smith
Woolf
, going to a party there on 5 June 1921, disliked Royde-Smith and her world at first sight. Never did I see a less attractive woman than Naomi. . . .I fixed her with...
ES
's interest in the interaction of different national cultures, and in the issue of what it means to be English, caused some commentators to liken her to Henry James
. R. Brimley Johnson
in...