ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. This book draws current scholarship in modernist and middlebrow literary studies, on the historical novel, on ruins and on the narrative of travel. It presents a range of approaches and shows how Macaulay's fiction is integral to modern British literature of the period its technical experimentation, her concern for the autonomy of the individual and the financial and professional independence of the woman. The book reinstates Macaulay as a significant British literary figure of the twentieth century. It organises to reflect five thematic approaches to Macaulay's fiction, establishing the connections between her work, the literary movements of her day and theoretical frameworks which demonstrate the robustness of Macaulay's work under critical scrutiny. The book explores how Macaulay moved on to consider different perspectives on psychological influences on the physical body in her novels Dangerous Ages (1921) and Keeping up Appearances (1928).
