Rose MacAulay

by Sarah Lefanu

In a writing career that covered the first fifty years of the twentieth century, Rose Macaulay produced twenty-three novels, six books of criticism, four books of travel and history and two collections of poetry, as well as a huge correspondence with her friends, figures such as Elizabeth Bowen, Virgina Woolf, EM Forster and TS Eliot. She gave the impression of being sexually uninterested in men ('she looked like a eunuch', said catty Virginia Woolf who did not take kindly to the fact that Rose's books were more popular than hers), while for a quarter of a century she was passionately in love with a married man. The relationship ended only with his death in 1942. A great comic writer who excelled at satire, she was also an innovator and experimenter and a sharp and invigorating commentator on matters of popular and public interest.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Sarah was born on the east coast of Scotland, was brought up there and in East Africa, and now lives in the west country. In the 1980s and 1990s she was Senior Editor at The Women’s Press, where she was responsible for their innovative and highly-regarded science fiction list.

From 2004 to 2009 she was Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival. She continues to chair events for the LitFest on a regular basis, and also for the Bristol Festival of Ideas.

Sarah teaches on the BA degree in English Literature and Community Engagement at the University of Bristol. She has just completed a year's post there as RLF Writing Fellow.

She has been a judge for the James Tiptree Award (an annual award for works of SF and fantasy that expand and explore the understanding of gender), and for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Her most recent books are S is for Samora: A Lexical Biography of Samora Machel and the Mozambican Dream (Hurst Publishers, November 2012), and Dreaming of Rose: A Biographer’s Journal (SilverWood Books, March 2013).

(from http://www.sarahlefanu.co.uk/)

Reviews

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In one part of the library precipitous ladders provided a short-cut from one floor to the next. Notices attached to them directed members to the stairs and informed them that they used the ladders at their own risk. Perhaps the idea of risk appealed to that streak of romantic daring in Rose's nature, or perhap she just wanted to get to the books by the quickest possible route: whatever the reason she was forever up and down those ladders like a chamois."

This is a quotation, not LeFanu herself writing, but it gives a flavour of the book. It answers curiosity about Macaulay's life without trying to iron out the contradictions in her character - a lover of parties and at the same time quite hidden - and sends you back to read her work. I didn't want to leave her company at the end of the biography.

Also - a connection with the Jonathan Coe novel - Rosamund Lehmann was a friend.

[Katharine Harding · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book about a fascinating person. Also a fellow Somervillian, which was particularly interesting for me.