ABSTRACT
In the archives of the Wren Library at Trinity College Cambridge, there are eighteen boxes of letters, documents and notebooks that belonged to Rose Macaulay. This chapter discusses how Macaulay's non-fictional writing traces her changing self-presentation, and enhances our understanding of how she shaped her career. It discusses the essays which 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'. This chapter shows how Macaulay released information about herself as a response to her own enthusiasms. She expected her readers to follow her, and responded negatively when she discovered that her values were not shared by people she met from younger generations. In 'fictions' it might also include the essays and articles that repurposed elements of Macaulay's life to create a public persona as a defence mechanism.
