This publication won praise from leading figures in the Labour Party including Keir Hardie and Philip Snowden, but folded after less than a year.
In April 1914 his play Fra Lippo Lippi, Painter of Florence was produced and performed by students of the Dundee Technical College and School of Art.
[10] Matthew Jarron notes that Lee was also in demand as an illustrator, with his drawings featuring in books including Dundee from the Tramcars (1908) and Lochee as It Was and as It Is (1911) as well as in his own Tales o’ Our Town.
[3][12][13] Lee's enlistment was despite his age, health problems (he was suffering from asthma) and the fact many of his associates in the labour movement in Dundee strongly opposed the war.
[12] During his time fighting, Lee sent sketches and poems back home to Scotland and became known as 'the Black Watch Poet'.
[18] A new musical version of Lee's poem 'The Listening Post', to a setting by Dallahan, was performed for the first time at a national commemorative event held in Dundee in 2015 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Loos.
[21] Lee's reputation as a war poet once ranked alongside those of Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke.
He also notes that Lee came through the War relatively unscathed and returned to his old work as a journalist after his release from captivity in Germany.
He also highlights the importance of Lee's war illustrations, drawn at the front and published with his poems, contenting that they were 'a major part of... [Ballads of Battle's] powerful sense of authenticity'.
[26] When in London after the First World War Lee is known to have sketched many famous figures that he encountered including Edward Elgar, Max Beerbohm and Edith Sitwell.
The collection also features copies of Lee's publications and material relating to them, including a letter from Keir Hardie.
[3][28][29] Over 250 of Lee's drawings (including ones sketched while a prisoner of war in Germany) are held by the University of Dundee Museum Services.
[31][32] In 2011 materials from Lee's papers, including extracts from the diary he wrote during his spell as a prisoner of war, were featured in an exhibition held by Archive Services to mark Remembrance Day.