Macaulay began writing her first novel,
Abbots Verney (published 1906), after leaving Somerville and while living with her parents at Ty Isaf, near
Aberystwyth, in
Wales. Later novels include
The Lee Shore (1912),
Potterism (1920),
Dangerous Ages (1921),
Told by an Idiot (1923), ''And No Man's Wit
(1940), The World My Wilderness (1950), and The Towers of Trebizond (1956). Her non-fiction work includes They Went to Portugal
, Catchwords and Claptrap
, a biography of John Milton, and Pleasure of Ruins''. Macaulay's fiction was influenced by Virginia Woolf and
Anatole France. Her
dystopian novel
What Not (1918) deals with
eugenics and misinformation in a fictional version of England. It was first published in 1918, then withdrawn and republished in 1919 with some passages removed. During
World War I Macaulay worked in the
British Propaganda Department, after some time as a nurse and later as a civil servant in the
War Office. She pursued a romantic affair with
Gerald O'Donovan, a writer and former Jesuit priest, whom she met in 1918; the relationship lasted until his death, in 1942. During the interwar period she was a sponsor of the pacifist
Peace Pledge Union; however, she resigned from the PPU and later recanted her pacifism in 1940. In the same period, she found new audiences through broadcasts on the BBC, and as a
columnist in journals such as
The Spectator,
The Listener, and
Time and Tide. In January 1941, Macaulay wrote: "The pageant of life is enormously enriched by the presence of so many foreigners in our midst...the uniforms of Polish soldiers mingle with those of the Czechs, Norwegians, Dutch and Free French...And not only foreigners. Driving in the country, you are continually hailed by the rich accents of young men in battle-dress from Alberta and Montreal, who seldom know where they are, and always want to go somewhere else. They are as a rule enormously charming". Her London flat was destroyed in
the Blitz, and she had to rebuild her life and library from scratch, as documented in the semi-autobiographical short story, ''Miss Anstruther's Letters'', which was published in 1942. where Macaulay lived from 1941 until her death
The Towers of Trebizond, her final novel, is generally regarded as her masterpiece. Strongly autobiographical, it treats with wistful humour and deep sadness the attractions of
mystical Christianity, and the irremediable conflict between adulterous love and the demands of the Christian faith. For this work, she received the
James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1956. ==Personal life==