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Rowena Farre (1922? - 1979) was a British writer who achieved fame for her first book Seal Morning, published in 1957. The book describes how at the age of ten she and her aunt Miriam settled in a remote croft in Sutherland, Scotland, where they lived for seven years with various pets that included a common seal, Lora.

Following the book's release, questions were raised concerning the authenticity of parts of the narrative, particularly the claimed musical abilities of seals, and the book is now considered an autobiographical novel rather than a strict autobiography.

Farre proved to be a deeply private and elusive writer, and the book's popularity grew, her publisher, Hutchinson, had to go to considerable effort to trace her. It was discovered that her real name was Lois Parr. However, she subsequently published under the name Daphne Lois Mcready. There is disagreement over her date of birth: it has been claimed she was 26 when the book appeared, giving her a birth date of c.1931. However, Curtis Brown states she died in 1979 aged 57, giving her a birthdate of c. 1922.

Seal Morning was followed by A Time from the World (1962), an account of her life among the gypsies, and The Beckoning Land (1963), describing her spiritual pilgrimage in Ceylon and India, the country of her birth. Neither book achieved the popularity of Seal Morning, which has gone through many reprints.

Seal Morning was made into a movie in 1986. [1]

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Rowena Farre", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0