Lee, Laurie

(1914-1997)

   Born in Slad, near Stroud, Gloucestershire, he worked in an office and as a builder's laborer, then spent 1935-1939 traveling in Europe. Some sources say he fought against Franco's Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39); others say this is fantasy. During and after World War II he was a journalist and a film-script writer, worked for the Ministry of Information, made several documentary films, and worked for the Ministry of Information Publications. From 1950 to 1951 he was captionwriter-in-chief for the Festival of Britain. He was made a member of the Order of the British Empire and received several literary awards. He wrote travel books, essays, a radio play and short stories. His autobiographical trilogy: Cider with Rosie (U.S. title The Edge of Day), 1959; As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, 1969; and A Moment of War, 1991. His poetry publications: The Sun My Monument, 1944. The Bloom of Candles, 1947. My ManyCoated Man, 1955. Pocket Poems, 1960. Selected Poems, 1983. Some of his poems: "April Rise," "Day of These Days," "Home From Abroad," "The Edge of Day," "The Long War," "Town Owl," "Village of Winter Carols."

   Sources: A Book of Nature Poems. William Cole, ed. Viking Press, 1969. Biography of Laurie Lee (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lauriele.htm). Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language. Francis Turner Palgrave, ed. Oxford University Press, 1964, sixth edition, updated by John Press, 1994. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The New Yorker Book of Poems. The New Yorker editors. Viking Press, 1969. The Oxford Book of Christmas Poems. Michael Harrison and Christopher Stuart-Clark, eds. Oxford University Press, 1983. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.