Constructing a public persona: Rose Macaulay’s non-fiction

Macdonald, K. (2017) Constructing a public persona: Rose Macaulay’s non-fiction. In: Macdonald, K. (ed.) Rose Macaulay, Gender and Modernity. Routledge, London and New York, pp. 187-216.

Abstract/Summary

This chapter discusses how Macaulay’s non-fictional writing traces her changing self-presentation, and enhances our understanding of how she shaped her career. Unlike the other chapters in this collection, this discussion takes a quantitative approach, since it considers over three hundred essays and contributions to books by Macaulay rather than a small number of her novels. The essays discussed here were published from 1920 until 1958, the year of her death. They show Macaulay’s keen attentiveness to the profession of writing, the mechanics of journalism and the role of the editor in creating and concealing ‘news’. They also reveal a conflict in her relationship with the public.