William McFee

William Morley Punshon McFee (15 June 1881 – 2 July 1966) was an English writer of sea stories. Both of his parents were Canadian. a three-masted ship owned by his father, a sea captain, in London, England. The McFee family lived in New Southgate, a northern suburb of London. He was educated at Culford School, in Culford, England. 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 book reviews was for the novel Save Me the Waltz (1932) 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."

McFee's works included In the First Watch (1946), an autobiography, published by Random House of Canada. He wrote several collections of memoirs. 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. 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.

Recognition In 1936, Yale University conferred an honorary Master of Arts degree on McFee.

Works

More Harbours of Memory. Doubleday, Doran & Co. 1934.