DEAREST JEAN

These lively and candid letters from Rose Macaulay to her first cousin Jean Smith are previously unknown. Macaulay was one of the most versatile, successful, and significant writers in the first half of the twentieth century, Smith a talented but diffident and depressive poet who was briefly an Anglican nun before converting to Roman Catholicism. The letters throw fascinating and often amusing light not only on the writer's private life, unconventional character, and varied career, but also on the lively literary and social circles in which she moved. They are essential reading for all interested in British literary culture and women's writing.