Winifred Mary Letts - Writing Career

Writing Career

She began her career as a playwright, writing two one-act plays for the Abbey Theatre: The Eyes of the Blind (1906) and The Challenge (1909). She then started writing novels and children's book. Her first poetry collection, Songs from Leinster, was published in 1913. Before that six of her poems had been set to music by C. V. Stanford in A Sheaf of Songs from Leinster (publ. 1914) of which the most famous is "A Soft Day". In 1916, by which time she was working as a nurse, she published Hallowe'en and Oher Poems of the War. The collection was re-issued the following year as The Spires of Oxford, and other Poems. A 'Publisher's Note' in this 1917 volume explained that "The verdict of the public, as shown by continual requests to republish, is that "The Spires of Oxford" is the most important poem in the volume—and therefore in issuing a new edition with several new poems, we bow to this verdict and give The Spires of Oxford its place in the forefront of the volume". Her poem "The Deserter" (written in 1916), describing the feelings and fate of a man terrified by the war, is often used in collections of World War I poetry.

She continued to write novels and children's fiction. In 1933 Knockmaroon, a reminiscence of her childhood in Dublin in her grandparents' house, and considered her finest book, was published.