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 It was first published in 1918, then withdrawn and republished in 1919 with some passages removed.[4][5]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.
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 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]
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:
Abbots Verney (1906) John Murray
The Furnace (1907) John Murray
The Secret River (1909) John Murray
The Valley Captives (1911) John Murray
Views and Vagabonds (1912) John Murray
The Lee Shore (1913) Hodder & Stoughton
The Making of a Bigot (c 1914) Hodder & Stoughton
Non-Combatants and Others (1916) Hodder & Stoughton
What Not: A Prophetic Comedy (1918)
Potterism (1920) William Collins
Dangerous Ages (1921) William Collins
Mystery At Geneva: An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings (1922) William Collins
Some Religious Elements in English Literature (1931) Hogarth
Milton (1934) Duckworth
Personal Pleasures (1935) Gollancz
The Minor Pleasures of Life (1936) Gollancz
An Open Letter (1937) Peace Pledge Union
The Writings of E.M. Forster (1938) Hogarth
Life Among the English (1942) William Collins
Southey in Portugal (1945) Nicholson & Watson
They Went to Portugal (1946) Jonathan Cape
Evelyn Waugh (1946) Horizon
Fabled Shore: From the Pyrenees to Portugal By Road (1949) Hamish Hamilton
Pleasure of Ruins (1953) Thames & Hudson
Coming to London (1957) Phoenix House
Letters to a Friend 1950–52 (1961) William Collins
Last Letters to a Friend 1952–1958 (1962) William Collins
Letters to a Sister (1964) William Collins
They Went to Portugal Too (1990) (The second part of They Went to Portugal, not published with the 1946 edition because of paper restrictions.) Carcanet
^Ward, Margaret K (1992). Great and Little Shelford in old picture postcards. European Library.
ISBN9028855041.
^
abStanley 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.
^Profile, guardian.co.uk; 31 May 2003; accessed 25 July 2015.
^Martin Ceadel, Semi-Detached Idealists:The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1854–1945. Oxford University Press, 2000;
ISBN0199241171 (p. 361).
^Williams, George G. Assisted by Marian and Geoffrey Williams. (1973) Guide to Literary London. London:
Batsford, p. 285;
ISBN0713401419
Hein, David. "Rose Macaulay: A Voice from the Edge." In David Hein and Edward Henderson, eds., C. S. Lewis and Friends: Faith and the Power of Imagination, 93–115. London: SPCK; Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011.
LeFanu, Sarah (2003). Rose Macaulay. London: Virago.
Moore, Judith (15 November 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.
ISBN0-8386-3284-X.
Martin Ferguson Smith (ed), Dearest Jean: Rose Macaulay’s letters to a cousin (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2011).