Dame

Rose Macaulay

DBE
Pencil sketch of Rose Macaulay
Pencil sketch of Rose Macaulay
BornEmilie Rose Macaulay
(1881-08-01)1 August 1881
Rugby, Warwickshire, England
Died30 October 1958(1958-10-30) (aged 77)
NationalityEnglish
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
EducationOxford High School for Girls
Alma materSomerville College, Oxford
Notable works
Notable awardsJames Tait Black Memorial Prize (1956)
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1958)
PartnerGerald O'Donovan (c. 1918–1942)

Dame Emilie Rose Macaulay, DBE (1 August 1881 – 30 October 1958) was an English writer, most noted for her award-winning novel The Towers of Trebizond, about a small Anglo-Catholic group crossing Turkey by camel.

The story is seen as a spiritual autobiography, reflecting her own changing and conflicting beliefs. Macaulay's novels were partly influenced by Virginia Woolf. She also wrote biographies, travelogues and poetry.

Early years and education

Macaulay was born in Rugby, Warwickshire the daughter of George Campbell Macaulay, a classical scholar, and his wife, Grace Mary (née 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.[1] In 1906 her father, George Macauley, moved to Southernwood, a grand house in Great Shelford, near Cambridge. She spent much of her time in the company of the poet Rupert Brooke, a family friend. During the First World War she worked as a land girl in Shelford. Here she was inspired to write a collection of poems called "On the Land 1916" recalling the hard work and companionship of those days.[2]

Career

Macaulay began writing her first 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 John Milton, and Pleasure of Ruins. Macaulay's fiction was influenced by Virginia Woolf and Anatole France.[3]

Her dystopian novel What Not (1918) deals with eugenics and misinformation in a fictional version of England. It was first published in 1918, then withdrawn and republished in 1919 with some passages removed.[4][5]

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, whom she met in 1918; the relationship lasted until his death, in 1942.[6] During the interwar period she was a sponsor of the pacifist Peace Pledge Union; however she resigned from the PPU and later recanted her pacifism in 1940.[7] In the same period, she found new audiences through broadcasts on the BBC, and as a columnist in journals such as The Spectator. The Listener, and Time and Tide.

Her London flat was 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.

The blue plaque on Hinde House at 11–14 Hinde Street where Macaulay lived from 1941 until her death[8][9]

The Towers of Trebizond, her 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. For this work, she received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1956.[10]

Personal life

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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.

Macaulay never married. She was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) on 31 December 1957 in the 1958 New Years Honours[11] and died ten months later, on 30 October 1958, aged 77. She was an active feminist throughout her life.[3]

Works

Fiction:

Poetry:

Non-fiction:

References

  1. ^ Crawford, Alice (1995). Paradise Pursued: The Novels of Rose Macaulay. Farleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 17. ISBN 9780838635735.
  2. ^ Ward, Margaret K (1992). Great and Little Shelford in old picture postcards. European Library. ISBN 9028855041.
  3. ^ a b Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft, editors; Twentieth Century Authors, A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature, (3rd edition). New York, The H. W. Wilson Company, 1950, pp. 865–66.
  4. ^ What Not: lost feminist novel that anticipated Brave New World finally finds its time
  5. ^ The 1918 Novel 'What Not' Is A Dystopian Masterpiece — So Why Isn't It More Widely Read?
  6. ^ Profile, guardian.co.uk; 31 May 2003; accessed 25 July 2015.
  7. ^ Martin Ceadel, Semi-Detached Idealists:The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1854–1945. Oxford University Press, 2000; ISBN 0199241171 (p. 361).
  8. ^ Williams, George G. Assisted by Marian and Geoffrey Williams. (1973) Guide to Literary London. London: Batsford, p. 285; ISBN 0713401419
  9. ^ Hibbert, Christopher; Ben Weinreb; John Keay; Julia Keay (2010). The London Encyclopaedia. London: Pan Macmillan. p. 402. ISBN 978-0-230-73878-2.
  10. ^ Shaffer, Brian W. (2011). The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, vol 1. Chichester: Wiley. p. 242. ISBN 978-1405192446. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  11. ^ London Gazette notice of Macaulay's damehood
  12. ^ "The poem 'Picnic: July 2017' and comment in the book 'In the Shadow of the Great War, Surrey 1914 - 1922', by Albury History Society" (PDF). Retrieved 7 November 2023.

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