The family were rich and were based in London but spent a good deal of time travelling in Germany and Switzerland.
During WW1, Stella did voluntary work as a gardner and in the East End of London. Her first volume of poetry was published in 1918. She died in Vietnam on 6th December 1933.
Stella's WW1 poetry collection was “Twenty: Poems” (Macmillan, London, 1918).
Preface:
Almost all the verses in this book have appeared before, the
majority of them included in two books, “I Pose” and “This is
the End”. Messrs. Macmillan, who published these, have been kind
in raising no objection to re-publication. I have also to thank the
Editors of the Athenaeum, Everyman, and the Pall Mall
Gazette for allowing me to reprint verses.
The title of the book has no reference to the writer's age.
CHRISTMAS, 1917
A key no thief can steal, no time can rust;
A faery door, adventurous and golden;
A palace, perfect to our eyes--Ah must
Our eyes be holden?
Has the past died before this present sin?
Has this most cruel age already stonèd
To martyrdom that magic Day, within
Those halls, enthronèd?
No. Through the dancing of the young spring rain,
Through the faint summer, and the autumn's burning,
Our still immortal Day has heard again
Our steps returning.
From "Twenty" by Stella Benson, which is available as a free down-load from Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12643
Additional information from Catherine W. Reilly "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978)
