Dustjacket synopsis:
"It 'contains more married love to the square inch than anything I ever read,' wrote E. V. Lucas when Doreen was first published in 1917. In it we find The Bloke, now happily married for six years, being gently nagged, arguing, making up, scolding his son for fighting - '"You show yet Mar that eye uv yours, I'm 'shamed uv you!" I lied' - and finally being nursed during a spell of 'sciatiker' by the ever-patient Doreen.
"Following the outstanding success of The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915) and The Moods of Ginger Mick (1916), Dennis wrote Doreen to serve as a Christmas gift. Despite its being a critical and popular success it was not republished and, until this new edition, only one of the poems, 'Washing Day', has been available in print.
"Hal Gye's illustrations as always perfectly complement and complete the work. He has clipped the wings of his larrikin-cupids, and here presnts Doreen and The Bloke as properly befits 'a man about the house' and his 'dinkum woman' - earthbound (though still dreaming).
'When a bloke gits on to dreamin' uv the old days an' Doreen -
The days I thort I snared a saint; but since I've understood
I 'ave wed a dinkum woman, which is fifty times as good.'
- The little gipsy vi'lits, they wus peepin' thro' the green
As she come walkin' in the grass, me little wife, Doreen.60 lines - Jist 'ere it gripped me, on a sudden, like a red-'ot knife.
I wus diggin' in the garden, talkin' pleasant to me wife,90 lines - "I wish't yeh menat it, Bill." Oh, 'ow me 'eart
Went out to 'er that evnin' on the beach.73 lines - I wus pickin' gipsy vi'lits fer to try an' square Doreen.
We 'ad words . . . about pianners - fer she wants one awful keen -84 lines - "Unless you 'ide that axe," she sez, "'E'll 'urt 'imself reel bad.
An' after all - Now, Bill, don't cry! - that trouble that I've 'a75 lines
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