Boake, Capel - Author - Colonial Australian Popular Fiction (original) (raw)

Born

29 August 1889
Summer Hill, New South Wales, Australia

Died

5 June 1944
Caulfield, Victoria, Australia

Alternative Names

• Kerr, Doris Boake (Birth name)

Summary

Boake was born at Sydney, NSW, and grew up mainly in Melbourne, leaving school early to become a shop assistant, and later a secretary, librarian and book-keeper. A niece of the colonial poet Barcroft Boake, she began writing after hours, publishing her first novel, Painted Clay in 1917. Several short stories and a collection of verse for children followed, before three further novels: The Romany Mark (1923), The Dark Thread (1936) and As the Twig is Bent (1946). After Boake's sudden death from a cerebral haemorrhage her good friend, author Myra Morris, collected and published a volume of her poetry.