Maurice, Furnley, 1881-1942

Frank Leslie Thomson Wilmot. Poet and essayist who used pseudonym "Furnley Maurice", Manager of Coles Book Arcade and Melbourne University Press. His first collection of poems was "Some Verses" (1903).

Frank Leslie Thompson Wilmot, ('Furnley Maurice') (1881-1942), poet, bookseller and publisher, was born on 6 April 1881 at Collingwood, Melbourne. He began writing verse as a child and in 1901-02, on his own primitive press, he produced eight lively issues of the monthly, Microbe, which he largely wrote. After steady rejection of his poems by the Bulletin he was accepted in 1905-06 as 'Furnley Maurice', the pseudonym he continued to use. Wilmot worked with the Book Arcade, eventually as manager, until its demise in 1929. He bought Cole's lending library and also launched out as a bookseller in Little Collins Street, but was saved in the Depression by appointment early in 1932 as the first full-time manager of the Melbourne University Press and Bookroom.

Frank Leslie Thompson Wilmot published his writings, chiefly poetry, under the pseudonym, Furnley Maurice. In 1902 he conducted a monthly magazine, The Microbe and in 1940 delivered the first course of lectures on Australian literature at the University of Melbourne sponsored by the Commonwealth Literary Fund.