"There are many books," says Murphey, "And I guess I've read the best..." to paraphrase CFS's "Port o' Dreams" BUT some are extremely rare. SONGS OF A GREATER BRITAIN (1899) and WINGS OF THE MORNING (1904) are the two poetry books we're looking for now.

There are over a dozen major CFS poetry books, some of them overlapping in terms of poems included. The anthology hopes to capture at least 400 poems. The long bio section on her page at the Oldoetry website describes all her known publications, well over 40 books.

I also wouldn't mind a copy of her travelogue ALL THE WAY ROUND, in which she describes her run up and down the West and and East coasts of Africa in the 1930's.

The real fiction prize would be a copy of her short romance novel PEREGRINE IN LOVE which I've only read reviews of. There may be strong parallels with her life experience in this work.

But the task at hand is posting her early poetic work which is certainly not my favorite period of her writing. She was in her late teens then and much of her poetry was unabashedly patriotic, fervently embracing British emperialism. Still this early work helps show what kind of young woman she was before she was sent, much against her will, to Victoria, British Columbia.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble