William McFee

William Morley Punshon McFee[1] (15 June 1881 – 2 July 1966) was an English writer of sea stories. Both of his parents were Canadian.[2]

William McFee
BornWilliam Morley Punshon McFee
(1881-06-15)15 June 1881
London, England
Died(1966-07-02)2 July 1966
New Milford, Connecticut, United States
OccupationWriter
NationalityEnglish
Period1908–1952
GenreSea story

Early years

The son of John McFee and Hilda Wallace McFee,[1] he was born (as was his sister) on the Erin's Isle,[2] a three-masted ship owned by his father, a sea captain, in London, England.[3] The McFee family lived in New Southgate, a northern suburb of London.[4] He was educated at Culford School, in Culford, England.[5]

As a youth, McFee worked in an engineering shop at Aldersgate, wrote a 40-page poem, and lectured on Kipling.[4]

Sailing

McFee became a mechanical engineer at Richard Moreland & Sons and W. Summerscales & Sons in the City, before going to sea as a marine engineer in 1906. He rose to chief engineer in ships of the Woodfield SS Co.; went to the United States in 1911 and wrote books, afterwards going to sea in ships of the United Fruit Company.During World War I he served in the Royal Navy as engineer in various transport ships.

After the war, he returned to the United States to live in Roxbury, Connecticut. He was with the United Fruit Company, as chief engineer[6] until 1924 when he turned definitively to writing.

Writing

In addition to books, he also wrote reviews for The New York Sun and The New York Times. One of his reviews was for Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald, in which he said, "In this book, with all its crudity of conception, its ruthless purloinings of technical tricks and its pathetic striving after philosophic profundity, there is the promise of a new and vigorous personality in fiction." Fitzgerald said that of all the negative reviews of her book, his "was at least intelligible."[7]

McFee's works included In the First Watch, an autobiography, published by Random House of Canada in 1946.[8] He wrote several collections of reminiscences; his hobby was making ship models.

Personal life

While in the navy, McFee met Pauline Khondoff, a Bulgarian refugee. The couple wed in 1920, but divorced in 1932.[9] He was married twice more, first to Beatrice Allender who died in 1952 and then to Dorothy North.

McFee became a United States citizen in 1925.[5]

Recognition

In 1936, Yale University conferred an honorary master of arts degree on McFee.[10]

Works
Great Sea Stories of Modern Times, edited by William McFee
  • Letters from an Ocean Tramp. Cassell & Company, Inc. 1908.
  • Aliens. Edward Arnold. 1914.
  • Casuals of the Sea. Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1916.
  • Aliens. Doubleday, Page & Co. 1919.
  • Captain Macedoine's Daughter. Doubleday, Page & Co. 1920.
  • A Six Hour Shift. Doubleday, Page & Co. 1920.
  • Harbours of Memory. Doubleday, Page & Co. 1922.
  • Command. Doubleday, Page & Co. 1922.
  • Race. Doubleday, Page & Co. 1924.
  • Sunlight in New Granada. Doubleday, Page & Co. 1925.
  • Swallowing the anchor: Being a revised and enlarged collection of notes made by an engineer in the merchant service who secured leave of absence from his ship to investigate & report upon the alleged superiority of life ashore. Doubleday, Page & Co. 1925.
  • Pilgrims of Adversity. Doubleday, Doran & company, Inc. 1928.
  • Life of Sir Martin Frobisher. J. Lane, Bodley Head. 1928.
  • North of Suez. Doubleday Doran. 1930.
  • Sailors of Fortune. William Heinemann Ltd. 1930.
  • The Harbourmaster. The Sun Dial Press. 1931.
  • No Castle in Spain. Doubleday Doran. 1933.
  • More Harbours of Memory. Doubleday Doran. 1934.
  • The Beachcomber. Doubleday Doran. 1935.
  • Sailor's Wisdom. J. Cape. 1935.
  • The Beachcomber. Doubleday, Doran & company, Inc. 1935.
  • Sailor's Bane. Ritten House. 1936.
  • The Derelicts. Faber & Faber. 1938.
  • The Watch Below. Random House. 1940.
  • Spenlove in Arcady. Random House. 1940.
  • A Conrad Argosy. Doubleday, Doran & company, Inc. 1942.
  • Ship to Shore. Random House. 1944.
  • In the First Watch. Random House. 1946.
  • Family Trouble. Random House. 1949.
  • The Law of the Sea. J.B. Lippincott Co. 1950.
  • The Adopted. Faber. 1952.
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References
  1. Leatherby, James Norman (Summer 1949). "William McFee: Writing Engineer". Prairie Schooner. University of Nebraska Press. 23 (2): 171. JSTOR 40624100.
  2. Young, Villette (24 May 1953). "He's Landlocked by Choice in Connecticut". Hartford Courant. Connecticut, Hartford. p. The Hartford Courant Magazine - 7. Retrieved 6 May 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. McCulloch, John Herries (1933). A Million Miles in Sail. London: Hurst and Blackwell. p. 23.
  4. Hubbard, Jonathan (9 September 1916). "England Discovers A Rare Genius In William McFee". The Evening Sun. Maryland, Baltimore. p. 4. Retrieved 6 May 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. "William McFee, 85, Dies; Author, Seaman, Engineer". Hartford Courant. Connecticut, Hartford. 4 July 1966. p. 1. Retrieved 6 May 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. "William McFee Papers". Special Collections Research Center. Syracuse University. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  7. Milford, Nancy (1970). Zelda: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row. p. 263. ISBN 9780060910693.
  8. "Autoiography Of Sea Writer". The Winnipeg Tribune. Canada, Winnipeg, Manitoba. 21 September 1946. p. 9. Retrieved 6 May 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. "William McFee Gets Divorce". The St. Louis Star and Times. Missouri, St. Louis. United Press. 20 February 1932. p. 5. Retrieved 6 May 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. "Sinclair Lewis Gets Honorary Yale Degree". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Missouri, St. Louis. Associated Press. 17 June 1936. p. 23. Retrieved 6 May 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  • Everyman's Dictionary of Literary Biography, English and American (1958)
  • Love, Paul A. "William McFee." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Late-Victorian and Edwardian British Novelists. Vol. 15. The Gale Group, 1995. 195–203. Gale Literary Databases. 8 December 2008 <http://galenet.galegroup.com>.
  • "William M'Fee, Author, 85, Dies." New York Times 4 July 1966: 15.
  • Who Was Who 1897–2006 (2007)
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