B. R. Whiting was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1923. He was educated at Geelong Grammar and served during World War II in New Guinea and India, where he was ADC to the Governor of Bengal. After the war he tried beekeeping in a tent in the Australian desert and wrote a newspaper column, "A Country Diary." He married the artist Lorri Whiting in 1948. They settled in Rome in 1955 where he began writing poetry in secret. He died in 1989 and left behind two chapbooks and many unpublished manuscripts. Christopher Fry and Stanley Moss put this volume together as a testament to the power and importance of the work.