A Poet Who Was Not Wanted

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 8, 10 January 1936, Page 3

A Poet Who Was Not Wanted

Lady Watson, wife of Sir William Watson, the poet, who died recently at Ditchling told the “Daily Mail” that three leading publishing firms had'refused to publish her husband’s collected work.

The collection was compiled by Sir William himself. He regarded it as the cream of his work, and included only those poems by which he wished to bo remembered.

Lady Watson, on her return with her daughters to their little cottage from the Ditchling nursing home where her husband died, showed a reporter a parcel of manuscripts tied with a green necktie. “My husband tied them up like that with his own tie because thero was not a piece of ribbon handy,” she Baid. “They include his very last work. I promised him that they should be kept safe and tied up just as you sec them until they aro ail published.” Then Lady Watson told how she tried just before Christmas to have the poems published. She offered them to two eminent firms and they were refused.

“These refusals upset my husband so much that I did not tell him when the poems were refused by the third publishers,” she said.

“And yet my husband was a great poet. Some day they will be clamouring for these poems. They’ will take their place in English literature. “But I will not hawk them round. They will remain here until someone recognises their worth.”