Laurie Lee
Laurie Lee was an English poet and memoirist, born in 1914 in Stroud, Gloucestershire, as the eleventh of twelve children in a working-class family. He received his education locally and, at nineteen, moved to London to work as a builder's laborer. Lee's literary career began with the publication of his poems in the Sunday Referee, leading to his first poetry collection, *The Sun My Monument*. He is best known for his memoirs, particularly *Cider with Rosie* (1959), which recounts his idyllic childhood in the Cotswolds, and *As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning* (1969), detailing his experiences in Spain during the lead-up to the Spanish Civil War. Although there is some debate regarding his actual involvement in the conflict, his recollections have been praised for their vividness. In addition to writing, he worked as a scriptwriter and editor during World War II and was awarded an MBE in 1952. Despite facing challenges later in life, including declining eyesight, Lee maintained a devoted readership, celebrated for his rich imagery and honest portrayals of life and memory.
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Laurie Lee
Poet
- Born: June 26, 1914
- Birthplace: Stroud, Gloucestershire, England
- Died: May 1, 1997
- Place of death: England
Biography
Laurie Lee was born in 1914, the eleventh of twelve children in a working-class family in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in the rural area known as the Cotswolds characterized by idyllic villages. He was educated in the local schools. After he left school, he walked to London at the age of nineteen to work as a builder’s laborer. Within a few years his, poems began appearing in the poetry column of the Sunday Referee.
Between 1935 and 1939, Lee traveled in Spain, where he observed the oncoming civil war. Lee’s memories of his village childhood and his travels in Spain were later recorded in Cider with Rosie (1959) and As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969), the first two volumes of his memoirs. The third volume, A Moment of War: A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War (1991) implies that Lee himself fought on the Republican side in that war. Although his actual participation has been questioned, his memories of the events of fifty years earlier have been praised for their vivid evocation of that conflict.
During World War II, Lee worked as a script writer and later as an editor for the Ministry of Information. During those days, he developed friendships with other writers, particularly C. Day Lewis and John Lehmann, who came to publish some of Lee’s early poems. After the publication of his first volume of poems, The Sun My Monument, some of his poems were included by poet Stephen Spender in Poetry Since 1939, a distinction which seemed to promise a level of achievement which Lee’s poems never actually attained. Although critics continued to praise Lee’s rich imagery, some readers concluded that his skills had developed farther than his thought and that his poems showed little variety in form or theme.
Lee’s themes often involve the idea of rebirth in adulthood. In The Bloom of Candles (1947) he redefines that theme to include references to Christian ideas of rebirth. In 1950, Lee married Catherine Francesca Polge; they had one child. In 1952, he was made a member of the Order of the British Empire. In 1955, Lee won the Foyles’s Poetry Award; in 1960 he won the W. H. Smith Award for Literature for Cider with Rosie, which he wrote at the suggestion of John Lehmann.
In his later years, Lee was faced with failing eyesight and his production of poetry diminished. He continued to write memoirs, however, and his skill at finding evocative detail and his refusal to sentimentalize even such a potentially sweet subject as his Cotswolds childhood have found an enthusiastic readership among those who recognize his evident love for the people, places, and times he records. These are the works which probably confirm Lee’s reputation.