Dauber and the Daffodil Fields

1923. Poet, novelist, dramatist and journalist, Masefield's literary career was a varied one. He went to sea as a youth and his first volumes of poems earned him the title of Poet of the Sea. He was a prolific writer, publishing poetry and novels as well as taking on editorial tasks. In 1930 he became Poet Laureate, a post he retained until his death 37 years later. The Dauber is fashioned after a man (by trade a house painter) Masefield knew who was determined to become an artist and to paint ships on the sea. To this end he gave up his work as a house painter and shipped himself to sea as a ship's painter, or, as sailors call it, a Dauber. Masefield's The Daffodil Fields is an example of how the long poem can and frequently does work as a novel. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.