Dangerous Ages

Rose Macaulay follows the women of one English family across four generations, each caught at an age the Edwardians thought perilous. Neville, turning forty-three, mourns the medical career she gave up for marriage; her aging mother clings to a fashionable psychoanalyst for meaning; her daughter Gerda drifts through modern love affairs; and the ancient grandmother watches from the edge of memory. Published in 1921 and winner of the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize, the novel weighs what women are permitted to want at every stage of life, and how little the answers have shifted between them. Macaulay’s tone stays wry and clear-eyed rather than sentimental. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.