Rose Macaulay

Others in the Potter newspaper empire are drawn into Jane’s destructive little ways. Mrs Potter is a well-known romantic novelist, whose cheap novelettes appear in the shop-girls’ magazines. She has become unable to distinguish fact from fiction, and her success gives her an unhealthy estimation of her own influence. When she visits a medium to try to find the truth about the murder of her son-in-law, she wreaks terrible damage. Arthur Gideon works for Mr Potter as an editor. He respects his employer’s honesty while he despises the populist newspapers he has to produce. His turbulent campaigning spirit, and his furious resistance to anti-Semitic attacks, make him unpopular, and becomes an unwitting target of malice. Subtitled ‘A Tragi-Farcical Tract’, Potterism is satirical, tragic and heart-breaking. It will outrage you, and fill you with sympathy for the victims who suffer under the Potter women’s urge to write.

'Take my camel, dear,' said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass." So begins The Towers of Trebizond, the greatest novel by Rose Macaulay, one of the eccentric geniuses of English literature. In this fine and funny adventure set in the backlands of modern Turkey, a group of highly unusual travel companions makes its way from Istanbul to legendary Trebizond, encountering potion-dealing sorcerers, recalcitrant policemen, and Billy Graham on tour with a busload of Southern evangelists. But though the dominant note of the novel is humorous, its pages are shadowed by heartbreak as the narrator confronts the specters of ancient empires, religious turmoil, and painful memories of lost love.

Non-Combatants and Others is scathing and heart-breaking, yet finds a way for pacifists to work for an end to conflict. Witty, furious and despairing in turn, Macaulay’s forgotten magazine columns reveal new insights into how people find war and its tyrannies creeping up on them. ‘Miss Anstruther’s Letters’ is devastating. But more desperate a loss than Miss Anstruther’s books were the letters from her secret lover, who had just died. Drawing from her own secret heartbreak, Macaulay wrote her life most powerfully into this, her last short story.

Personal Pleasures is an anthology of 73 short essays (some of them very short) about the things she enjoyed most in life. The complete list consists of: • Abroad Album Arm-Chair Astronomy Bakery in the Night Bathing 1 Off the Florida Keys 2 Off the Ligurian Coast 3 In the Cam Bed 1 Getting into it 2 Not getting out of it Believing Bird in the Box Book Auctions Booksellers’ Catalogues Bulls Candlemas Canoeing Chasing Fireflies Christmas Morning Church-going 1. Anglican 2. Roman Catholic 3. Quaker 4. Unitarian Cinema Clothes Cows Departure of Visitors Disbelieving Doves in the Chimney Driving a Car Easter in the Woods Eating and Drinking Elephants in Bloomsbury Fastest on Earth Finishing a Book Fire Engines Flattery Flower Shop in the Night Flying Following the Fashion Fraternal Getting Rid Hatching Eggs Heresies Hot Bath Ignorance 1. Of one’s neighbours 2. Of current literature 3. Of gossip 4. Of wickedness 5. Of one’s pass-book Improving the Dictionary Listening In Logomachy Meals Out 1 On the roof 2 On the pavement New Year’s Eve Not Going to Parties Parties Play-Going Pretty Creatures Reading Shopping Abroad Showing Off Solitude Sunday Taking Umbrage Talking about a New Car Telling Travellers’ Tales Turtles in Hyde Park Walking Writing While each essay can be read on its own as a short dose of delicious writing, the collection is also an autobiographical selection, revealing glimpses of Rose’s own life, and making us laugh helplessly with her inimitable humour.