Tales of the Clipper Ships

INTRODUCTIONC. Fox Smith—the byline of Cicely Fox Smith (1882–1954) was an English poet and writer. She was born in Lymm, Cheshire and often wandered the moors near her home, where she developed a spirit of adventure. She would follow the Holcombe Harriers hunt on foot as a girl. She had a fierce desire to travel to Africa but eventually settled for a voyage to Canada. Smith likely sailed with her sister Madge in 1911 on a steamship to Montreal, where she would then have traveled by train to Lethbridge, Alberta, staying for about a year with her older brother Richard Andrew Smith before continuing on to British Columbia. From 1912 to 1913 she resided in the James Bay neighborhood of Victoria at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, working as a typist for the British Columbia Lands Department and later for an attorney on the waterfront. Her spare time, though, was spent roaming nearby wharves and alleys, talking to residents and sailors alike. She listened to and learned from the sailors' tales until she too was able to speak with that authoritative nautical air that pervades her written work. The stories in Tales of the Clipper Ships are based on these experiences. She returned to the United Kingdom shortly before the outbreak of World War I, where she settled in Hampshire and began writing poetry, often with a nautical theme. She published over 600 poems in her life, for a wide range of publications. In later life, she expanded her writing to a number of subjects, fiction and non-fiction. For her services to literature, the British Government awarded her a small pension. Some of her book titles showcase her lifelong infatuation with all things nautical: Ships and Folks (1920) Sea Songs and Ballads, 1917–22 (1923) Ship Alley: More Sailor Town Days (1925) There Was a Ship: Chapters from the History of Sail (1929) All the Way Round: Sea Road to Africa (1938) Ship Models (1951) Cicely Fox Smith died on 8 April 1954, in the town of Bow, Devon, where she'd been living with her sister Madge. —David Lefferts Cannon Los Angeles, California