Author(s): Rose Macaulay; Kate Macdonald (Introductions and notes by)

Biography & Memoir | Cat's picks

Personal Pleasures is an anthology of 80 short essays (some of them very short) about the things the feminist critic and nivelist Rose Macaulay 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.