Keeping Up Appearances by Rose Macaulay was sent to me to review by British Library, it’s part of their British Library Women Writers series. I was really happy to receive it as I’ve enjoyed other books by the author. It was first published in 1928 and there’s an afterword by Simon Thomas.

This one is a really interesting and entertaining read although I must admit that it took me a wee while to realise what the author was doing.

Daphne and Daisy are half-sisters with five years in between their age, and they’re both attracted to the same man. At the beginning of the book they are living abroad with the Folyot family who are somewhat higher up on the social scale, but an incident leads to a return home to London where Daisy, who is far less socially poised than Daphne is, becomes embarrassed by her rather common mother. Daisy’s mother is so proud of her daughter, Daisy is a journalist but she is only given silly articles to write for the newspaper about what the ‘modern girl’ thinks about this and that. She also writes novels which are popular, but Daisy still isn’t impressed by herself.

It’s Daphne who easily fits in with other people, she’s popular mainly because she bends herself to agree with whomever is speaking to her. Things get completely out of hand for Daisy.

It’s difficult to review this one without giving too much away, but I will say that Macaulay’s father George Campbell Macaulay comes from a Scottish (Lewis) family – and Rose Macaulay must have been influenced by him quite a bit when she thought of writing this one!