Dangerous Ages

Dame Rose MacaulayProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.7

Word count: 362K words
Chapters: 37

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Dangerous Ages by Rose MacaulayAuthor: Macaulay, Rose, 1881-1958,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Oct 4, 2005

Editor's review

Rose Macaulay's Dangerous Ages is a work distinguished by dialogue and social scenes, centering on the situations and states of mind of women at different ages, in a witty and satirical tone. Macaulay excels at revealing her characters' self-perceptions through casual conversation, giving the novel both the sharpness of social observation and an easy readability. This Project Gutenberg edition is a public-domain text, suitable as a research sample of early twentieth-century British women's writing and for general readers seeking a sense of how educated women of that era thought. Note that the book relies on dialogue to advance and has little plot movement; readers expecting dramatic turns may find it flat. It is better read in quiet sittings, in installments, attentive to the subtle irony in the characters' speech.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in twentieth-century British women's writing
Literature lovers who enjoy dialogue-driven, socially observant fiction
Students and teachers studying the transition of the British novel around modernism
Mature readers who appreciate irony and witty conversation

Not a good fit for

Readers of popular fiction who prefer strong plots and action
Readers impatient with extensive dialogue and social scenes
Beginners who need detailed historical annotations to enter the text

Reading tips

Read in sections following the characters, noting how people of different ages react differently to the same topic.
Mark dialogues that convey irony to better grasp Macaulay's narrative tone.
Read alongside material on the changing social roles of British women in the early twentieth century.
Don't rush; read a chapter or two at a time and let the wit of the dialogue settle.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book about age or about women's circumstances?

Judging from the title and the author's style, the work explores the mindsets and social situations of people at different ages; age is the entry point, while the real focus is the tension between women's self-perception and social expectations. Please refer to the original text for specifics.

Does the ebook include other works by the author?

This entry corresponds only to Dangerous Ages and shows no additional works. Project Gutenberg entries usually hold one book per file; other works by Macaulay can be searched separately.

Is it suitable for use as a course text?

It can serve as supplementary reading for courses on twentieth-century British women's fiction or popular writing around modernism, but since it has no modern annotations, instructors will need to prepare background materials and discussion questions themselves.

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About the author

Dame Rose Macaulay Author · English · 1881–1958

Dame Rose Macaulay (1881–1958) was a British novelist, travel writer and critic, born in Rugby, Warwickshire, and educated at Somerville College, Oxford. She first became known for social satires such as Potterism and Dangerous Ages, which target social manners and the psychology of her time. The library also holds eight of her works, including Non-combatants and Others, Mystery at Geneva, The Making of a Bigot, What Not: A Prophetic Comedy, The Furnace and The Lee Shore, whose subjects range from war and urban life to human nature. Her novel The Towers of Trebizond won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and her writing combines wit, intelligence and lively learning. She was made a DBE in 1958.