Nora May French (1881-1907) is an enigmatic and ethereal figure in American poetry and in the poetry of California. Born in Aurora, New York, she came to Los Angeles with her family when she was a little girl, and in the course of her brief and tragic life she lived and wrote more intensely than many who live a full span of years. Her poetry possesses its own kind of cosmic consciousness, aligning it with the work of Clark Ashton Smith and her friend George Sterling. Its delicacy and pathos render it an imperishable monument to the throbbing emotions and aesthetic sensitivity of the woman who, although beloved by all in Sterling"s Bohemian circle, suffered keenly from her own love affairs and committed suicide in November 1907. Now, more than a hundred years after her passing, her poems have been gathered in this volume for the first time. The book includes an extensive biographical and critical introduction by Donald Sidney-Fryer, tributes to French by her contemporaries and by later...