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Rose Macaulay: A Biography
Ebook publication of the acclaimed biography, formerly published by Virago in 2003.
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 large correspondence. Her friends included Ivy Compton-Burnett, Virginia Woolf, E M Forster, Rosamond Lehmann and Elizabeth Bowen.
She gave the impression of being sexually uninterested in men (she looked like a eunuch, said Virginia Woolf, who did not take kindly to Rose’s novels being more popular than her own), while for a quarter of a century she was passionately involved with a married man.
A great comic writer who excelled at satire, she was also a literary innovator and experimenter, and a sharp and invigorating commentator on matters of popular and public interest.
This new eBook edition includes the ‘discursive, detailed, original’ endnotes (Independent) properly referenced for the first time and in an easy-to-use format.
REVIEWS
A magnificent job … imaginative and thoughtful, dense with distilled information … LeFanu offers a skilled visual, intellectual and emotional picture of a complex woman.
Diana Souhami, Independent
A fine biography … rich and perceptive … Sarah LeFanu (is) an able and astute judge of Macaulay’s writings.
Miranda Seymour, Times Literary Supplement
Sarah LeFanu’s biography glows with lively depiction of Macaulay’s idyllic childhood in Italy, her troubled twenties in Oxford and her survival through both world wars … Rose’s youthful demand that her biography be written in a "bright & popular & yet scholarly style” has been fulfilled.
Sunday Times
An exhilarating book.
Sunday Telegraph
Sarah LeFanu’s biography not only captures (that) essence of the woman, but the spirit of the rapidly changing times, putting Rose Macaulay’s writings and life in context, both before and after her death. Highly recommended.
Afric Hamilton, Irish Examiner
The strength of Sarah LeFanu’s biography is the way it captures and animates Macaulay’s social volubility, and especially her genius for unforced gaiety, while at the same time preserving and conveying the deep vein of solitariness and melancholy that ran through her life and her work.
Alex Clark, Guardian
… a subtle, humorous and penetrating biography; much to be recommended.
Noonie Minogue, The Tablet
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 large correspondence. Her friends included Ivy Compton-Burnett, Virginia Woolf, E M Forster, Rosamond Lehmann and Elizabeth Bowen.
She gave the impression of being sexually uninterested in men (she looked like a eunuch, said Virginia Woolf, who did not take kindly to Rose’s novels being more popular than her own), while for a quarter of a century she was passionately involved with a married man.
A great comic writer who excelled at satire, she was also a literary innovator and experimenter, and a sharp and invigorating commentator on matters of popular and public interest.
This new eBook edition includes the ‘discursive, detailed, original’ endnotes (Independent) properly referenced for the first time and in an easy-to-use format.
REVIEWS
A magnificent job … imaginative and thoughtful, dense with distilled information … LeFanu offers a skilled visual, intellectual and emotional picture of a complex woman.
Diana Souhami, Independent
A fine biography … rich and perceptive … Sarah LeFanu (is) an able and astute judge of Macaulay’s writings.
Miranda Seymour, Times Literary Supplement
Sarah LeFanu’s biography glows with lively depiction of Macaulay’s idyllic childhood in Italy, her troubled twenties in Oxford and her survival through both world wars … Rose’s youthful demand that her biography be written in a "bright & popular & yet scholarly style” has been fulfilled.
Sunday Times
An exhilarating book.
Sunday Telegraph
Sarah LeFanu’s biography not only captures (that) essence of the woman, but the spirit of the rapidly changing times, putting Rose Macaulay’s writings and life in context, both before and after her death. Highly recommended.
Afric Hamilton, Irish Examiner
The strength of Sarah LeFanu’s biography is the way it captures and animates Macaulay’s social volubility, and especially her genius for unforced gaiety, while at the same time preserving and conveying the deep vein of solitariness and melancholy that ran through her life and her work.
Alex Clark, Guardian
… a subtle, humorous and penetrating biography; much to be recommended.
Noonie Minogue, The Tablet
361 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2003
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47 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Lefanu
22 books6 followersSarah 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/)
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/)
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 18, 2007
"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.
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.
August 2, 2017
A great book about a fascinating person. Also a fellow Somervillian, which was particularly interesting for me.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews