Eileen Duggan Libros

The Stories of Eileen Duggan presents the two collections of short stories Eileen Duggan wrote but did not offer for publication, and includes a Preface by the editor, Helen J. O'Neill, and a substantial introduction by John Weir. Eileen Duggan was born in Tuamarina in 1894, the youngest of four daughters of Irish immigrant parents. Her first poems were published in the Tablet in 1917, and by the time of her second full collection in 1936 she was internationally celebrated as the best poet New Zealand had produced, published and widely reviewed in Ireland, Great Britain and the United States. At home, however, her work had little appeal to the modernist movement led by Curnow, Glover and Fairburn, and in her later years she supported herself as a journalist and wrote little poetry, before her death in Wellington in 1972. Published here for the first time, these stories are tantalising evidence of the fiction writer Eileen Duggan could have become if she had not devoted her primary creative energy to poetry, and are an important addition to the canon of New Zealand literature.

Eileen Duggan (1894-1972) was New Zealand's best known poet while she was writing and publishing - for many years her reputation outside New Zealand exceeded that of any other New Zealand poet - but today her work is largely out of print. Duggan's poetry showed an undeniable lyric gift and genuine skill in the evocation of atmosphere. She began writing in the tradition of Georgian poetry, and for most of her career showed a preference for traditional forms, through which she explored in particular religious and nationalist themes. Her most mature and accomplished work, written during and immediately after World War II, was spare and austere, combining passion with intelligence. This selection, first published on 21 May 1994, the 100th anniversary of her birth, gives us the fullest picture yet available of this important poet. Her best known poems are accompanied by many previously unpublished pieces. There is also a selection of her autobiographical and literary prose writings Peter Whiteford is a lecturer in the Victoria University of Wellington English Department.