Walter de la Mare

Walter John de la Mare OM CH (25 April 1873 - 22 June 1956) was an English poet, children's writer, short story writer, and novelist.

Walter de la Mare (1873-1956). Courtesy Emily's Poetry Blog.

Life

Youth and education

Walter de la Mare was born at 83 Maryon Road, Charlton, Kent (now part of the London Borough of Greenwich). He was born to James Edward de la Mare, a clerk at the bank of England descended from a family of French Huguenots, and Lucy Sophia (Browning) (James's 2nd wife), daughter of Scottish naval surgeon and author Dr Colin Arrott Browning. (The assertion that Lucy was related to poet Robert Browning has been found to be incorrect.) He had 2 brothers, Francis Arthur Edward and James Herbert ("Bert"), and 4 sisters: Florence Mary, Constance Eliza, Ethel (who died in infancy), and Ada Mary ("Poppy"). De la Mare was known as Jack by his family and friends as he hated the name Walter.

He was educated at St Paul's Cathedral School.

Walter de la Mare in 1924. Photo by Lady Ottoline Morrell. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

In 1892, de la Mare joined the Esperanza Amateur Dramatics Club, where he met and fell in love with Elfrida (Elfie) Ingpen, the leading lady, who was 10 years older than he was. On August 4, 1899 De la Mare and Elfie, who was by then pregnant, were married. They went on to have 4 children - Richard Herbert Ingpen ('Dick'), Colin, Florence and Lucy Elfrida ('Jinnie') de la Mare. Their house at Anerley was the scene of many parties, notable for imaginative games of charades.

Career

His debut collection, Songs of Childhood, was published under the name Walter Ramal. He worked in the statistics department of the London office of Standard Oil for 18 years while struggling to bring up a family, but nevertheless found enough time to write.

From 1912 through 1922 he was published in the 5 Georgian Poetry anthologies. In 1923, he edited his own anthology, Come Hither an anthology mostly of poetry with some prose. It has a frame story, and can be read on several levels. The 1923 edition was a success, and further editions followed. It also provides a selection of the leading Georgian poets (from de la Mare's perspective). It is arguably also the best account of their "hinterland", documenting thematic concerns and a selection of their predecessors.

De la Mare also wrote some subtle psychological horror stories; "Seaton's Aunt" and "Out of the Deep" are noteworthy examples.

In 1940 Elfie was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and spent the rest of her life as an invalid, eventually dying in 1943. From 1940 until his death, De la Mare lived in Montpelier Row, Twickenham, the same street where Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson had lived a century earlier. In 1947 he suffered from coronary thrombosis and died of another in 1956.

Writing

The imagination

De la Mare described 2 distinct "types" of imagination, although "aspects" might be a better term: the childlike and the boylike. It was at the border between the 2 that Shakespeare, Dante, and the rest of the great poets lay.

De la Mare claimed that all children initially fall into the category of having a childlike imagination, which is usually replaced at some point in their lives. In his lecture, "Rupert Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination," he argued that children "are not so closely confined and bound in by their groping senses. Facts to them are the liveliest of chameleons ... They are contemplatives, solitaries, fakirs, who sink again and again out of the noise and fever of existence and into a waking vision." Doris Ross McCrosson summarizes this passage, "Children are, in short, visionaries." This visionary view of life can be seen as either vital creativity and ingenuity, or fatal disconnection from reality (or, in a limited sense, both).

The increasing intrusions of the external world upon the mind, however, frighten the childlike imagination, which "retires like a shocked snail into its shell." From then onward the boyish imagination flourishes, the "intellectual, analytical type."

By adulthood (de la Mare proposed), the childlike imagination has either retreated for ever or grown bold enough to face the real world. Thus emerge the 2 extremes of the spectrum of adult minds: the mind molded by the boylike is "logical" and "deductive". That shaped by the childlike becomes "intuitive, inductive." De la Mare's summary of this distinction is, "The one knows that beauty is truth, the other reveals that truth is beauty." Another way he puts it is that the visionary's source of poetry is within, while the intellectual's sources are without - external - in "action, knowledge of things, and experience," as McCrosson puts it. De la Mare hastens to add that this does not make the intellectual's poetry any less good, but it is clear where his own preference lies.

A note to avoid confusion: The term "imagination" in the lecture "Rupert Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination" is used to refer to both the intellectual and the visionary. To simplify and clarify his language, de la Mare generally used the more conventional "reason" vs. "imagination" when discussing the same ideas elsewhere.

Writer Joan Aiken cites some of his short stories such as Almond Trees and Snow Mountains for their sometimes unexplained quality, which she also employs in her own work.

Supernaturalism

De la Mare was a significant writer of ghost stories. John Clute comments that "in his long career, De la Mare seems to have published about 100 stories, of which about eighty-five have been collected. At least forty of these have supernatural content". Many of De la Mare's ghost stories can be found in the collections Eight Tales; The Riddle, and other stories; The Connoisseur, and other stories; On the Edge; and The Wind Blows Over. (His complete short stories have now been published in 3 volumes issued by Giles de la Mare Publishers, London.) De la Mare also wrote 2 supernatural novels, Henry Brocken (1904) and The Return (1910) and for children, The Three Mulla Mulgars (1910, a.k.a. The Three Royal Monkeys), described by critic Brian Stableford as a "classic animal fantasy". Boucher and McComas, however, dismissed his 1949 Collected Tales, saying "we freely admit we find Mr. de la Mare's self-consciously subtle wordiness unreadable."

Recognition

His 1921 novel, Memoirs of a Midget, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.

Yeats included his poetry in the Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1936.

In popular culture

De la Mare's play Crossings has an important role in Robertson Davies' novel The Manticore. In 1944, when the protagonist David Staunton is sixteen, de la Mare's play is produced by the pupils of his sister's school in Toronto, Canada. Staunton falls deeply in love with the girl playing the main role - a first love which would have a profound effect on the rest of his life.

Publications

Poetry

• Poems. John Murray, 1906.
• The Old Men. Flying Fame, 1913.
• The Listeners, and other poems. London: Constable, 1912; New York: Holt, 1916.
• The Sunken Garden, and other poems. London: Beaumont Press, 1917
  • also published as The Sunken Garden, and other verses. Birmingham, UK: Birmingham School of Printing, 1931.
• Motley, and Other poems. Holt, 1918.
• Flora: A book of drawings (illustrated by Pamela Bianco). Lippincott, 1919.
• Poems, 1901 to 1918 (2 volumes). Constable, 1920. Volume I, Volume II.
  • published in USA as Collected Poems, 1901-1918 (2 volumes). New York: Holt, 1920. Volume I, Volume II.
• The Veil, and other poems. Constable, 1921; Holt, 1922.
• Thus Her Tale: A poem (illustrated by William Oglivie). Edinburgh: Porpoise Press, 1923.
• A Ballad of Christmas. Selwyn & Blount, 1924.
• The Hostage. Selwyn & Blount, 1925.
• St. Andrews: Two Poems (with Rudyard Kipling). A. & C. Black, 1926.
• Walter de la Mare (edited by Edward Thompson). London: Ernest Benn, 1926.
• Alone (wood engravings by Blair Hughes-Stanton). London: Faber & Gwyer, 1927.
• Selected Poems. Holt, 1927.
• The Captive and Other Poems. New York: Bowling Green Press, 1928.
• Self to Self. Faber, 1928.
• A Snowdrop (illustrated by Claudia Guercio). Faber, 1929.
• News (illustrated by Barnett Freedman). Faber, 1930.
• To Lucy (illustrated by Albert Rutherston). Faber, 1931.
• Two Poems. privately printed, 1931.
• The Fleeting and other poems. Knopf, 1933.
• Poems 1919 to 1934. Constable, 1935; Holt, 1936.
• Poems. Corvinus Press, 1937.
• Memory and other poems. Holt, 1938.
• Two Poems (with Arthur Rogers). privately printed, 1938.
• Haunted: A poem. Linden Press, 1939.
• Collected Poems. Holt, 1941.
• Time Passes and other poems (edited by Anne Ridler). Faber, 1942.
• Collected Rhymes and Verse (illustrated by Berthold Wolpe). Faber, 1944 (illustrated by Errol Le Cain).
• The Burning-Glass. New York: Viking Press, 1945
  • (illustrated by John Piper). Faber, 1946.
• The Traveller. Faber, 1946.
• Two Poems: Pride, The Truth of Things. Dropmore Press, 1946.
• Inward Companion. Faber, 1950.
• Winged Chariot and other poems. Viking, 1951.
• O Lovely England, and other poems. Faber, 1953; Viking, 1956.
• Selected Poems (edited by R.N. Green-Armytage). Faber, 1954.
• The Winnowing Dream (illustrated by Robin Jacques). Faber, 1954.
• The Morrow. privately printed, 1955.
• Collected Poems (illustrated by B. Wolpe). Faber, 1961.
• Poems (edited by Eleanor Graham, illustrated by Margery Gill). Penguin, 1962.
• Walter de la Mare (edited by John Hadfield). Vista Books, 1962.
• A Choice of de la Mare's Verse (edited and with an introduction by W.H. Auden). Faber, 1963.
• Envoi. privately printed, 1965.
• Complete Poems (edited by Leonard Clark and others). Faber, 1969; Knopf, 1970.
• Collected Poems. Faber, 1979.

Novels

• Henry Brocken: His travels and adventures in the rich, strange, scarce-imaginable regions of romance. London: J. Murray, 1904; New York: Knopf, 1924.
• The Return. London: Arnold, 1910; New York: Putnam, 1911
  • revised edition, New York: Knopf, 1922.
• Memoirs of a Midget. London: Collins, 1921; New York: Knopf, 1922.

Short fiction

• Lispet, Lispett, and Vaine. London: Morland Press, 1923.
• The Riddle. London: Selwyn & Blount, 1923
  • published as The Riddle and other tales. New York: Knopf, 1923.
• Ding Dong Bell. New York: Knopf, 1924.
• Two Tales: The Green-Room, The Connoisseur. London: Bookman's Journal, 1925.
• The Connoisseur and other stories. New York: Knopf, 1926.
• At First Sight. New York: Crosby Gaige, 1928.
• On the Edge: Short stories (wood engravings by Elizabeth Rivera). London: Faber, 1930; New York: Knopf, 1931.
• Seven Short Stories (illustrated by John Nash). Faber, 1931.
• A Forward Child. Faber, 1934.
• The Nap and other stories. London: Nelson, 1936.
• The Wind Blows Over. New York: Macmillan, 1936.
• Ghost Stories (illustrated by Freedman). London: Folio Society, 1936.
• The Picnic and Other Stories. Faber, 1941.
• Best Stories of Walter de la Mare. Faber, 1942.
• The Collected Tales of Walter de la Mare (edited by Edward Wagenknecht). New York: Knopf, 1950.
• A Beginning and other stories. Faber, 1955.
• Best Stories. Faber, 1957.
• Some Stories. Faber, 1962.
• Eight Tales. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1971.
• Short Stories, 1895-1926 (edited by Giles de la Mare). London: Giles de la Mare Publishers, 1996.
• Short Stories 1927-1956 (edited by Giles de la Mare). London: Giles de la Mare Publishers, 2000.

Non-fiction

• M.E. Coleridge: An Appreciation. The Guardian, 1907.
• Rupert Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination: A lecture. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1919; New York: Harcourt, 1920.
• Some Thoughts on Reading (lecture). Yellowlands Press, 1923.
• Some Women Novelists of the 'Seventies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1929.
• The Printing of Poetry (lecture). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1931.
• The Early Novels of Wilkie Collins. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1932.
• Lewis Carroll. Faber, 1932.
• Poetry in Prose (lecture). H. Milford (London), 1935; New York: Oxford University Press, 1937.
• Arthur Thompson: A Memoir. privately printed, 1938.
• An Introduction to Everyman. London: Dent, 1938.
• Pleasures and Speculations (essays). Faber, 1940; Books for Libraries Press, 1969.
• Private View (essays). Faber, 1953; New York: Hyperion, 1979.
• Stories, Essays, and Poems (edited by M.M. Bozman). Dent, 1938.
• Walter de la Mare: A Selection from His Writings (edited by Kenneth Hopkins). Faber, 1956.
• Secret Laughter (illustrated by Gill). Penguin, 1969.

Juvenile

frontispiece from Come Hither, 1923

Poetry

• Songs of Childhood (as "Walter Ramal"). London & New York: Longmans Green, 1902; reprinted by Garland, 1976
  • revised edition (as " Walter de la Mare"). London & New York: Longman, 1916
  • new edition published as Songs of Childhood (illustrated by Estella Canziani), 1923; (illustrated by Marion Rivers-Moore). Faber, 1956.
• A Child's Day: A book of rhymes (illustrated by Carine Cadby and Will Cadby). Constable, 1912
  • (illustrated by Winifred Bromhall). Holt, 1923.
• Peacock Pie. Constable, 1913
  • (illustrated by W. Heath Robinson), 1916
  • (illustrated by Jocelyn Crow). Holt, 1936
  • (illustrated by Edward Ardizzone). Faber, 1946
  • (illustrated by Barbara Cooney). Knopf, 1961
  • revised edition, Faber, 1969
  • 1st American edition, New York: Holt, 1989.
• Down-a-Down-Derry: A book of fairy poems (illustrated by Lathrop). Holt, 1922.
• Stuff and Nonsense and So On (woodcuts by Bold). Holt, 1927
  • revised edition, Faber, 1946; (illustrated by Margaret Wolpe), Faber, 1957.
• Poems for Children. Holt, 1930.
• This Year: Next Year (with Harold Jones, illustrated by Jones). Holt, 1937.
• Bells and Grass: A book of rhymes (illustrated by F. Rowland Emett). Faber, 1941
  • (illustrated by Lathrop). Viking, 1942.
• Rhymes and Verses: Collected poems for children (illustrated by Elinore Blaisdell). Holt, 1947.
• The Voice: A sequence of poems (edited and illustrated by Catherine Brighton). Faber, 1986; Delacorte, 1987.

Plays

• Crossings: A Fairy Play (music by Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, illustrated by Randolph Schwabe) (produced by Hove, Sussex, 1919, London, 1925). Beaumont Press, 1921
  • (illustrated by Lathrop). Knopf, 1923
  • (illustrated by Gwendolen Raverat). Faber, 1942.

Prose

• The Three Mulla-Mulgars (illustrated by J.R. Monsell). London: Duckworth, 1910
  • (illustrated by Dorothy Pullis Lathrop). New York: Knopf, 1919
  • (illustrated by J.A. Shepherd). Selwyn & Blount, 1924
  • published as The Three Royal Monkeys (illustrated by Mildred E. Eldridge). Faber, 1969.
• Story and Rhyme. New York: Dutton, 1921.
• Broomsticks and other tales (fiction), illustrated by Bold, Knopf, 1925.
• Miss Jemima (illustrated by Buckels). Basil Blackwell, 1925; Artists and Writers Guild (Poughkeepsie, NY), 1935
  • published as The Story of Miss Jemima (illustrated by Nellie H. Farnam). New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1940.
• (With others) Number Three Joy Street. New York: Appleton, 1925.
• (With others) Number Four Joy Street. New York: Appleton, 1926.
• (With others) Number Five Joy Street. New York: Appleton, 1927.
• Lucy (illustrated by Hilda T. Miller). Basil Blackwell, 1927.
• Old Joe (illustrated by Nightingale). Basil Blackwell, 1927.
• Told Again: Traditional Tales (illustrated by A.H. Watson). Blackwell, 1927
  • published as Told Again: Old Tales Told Again. Knopf, 1927
  • published as Tales Told Again, (illustrated by Alan Howard). Faber/Knopf, 1959.
• (With others) Number Six Joy Street. New York: Appleton, 1928.
• Stories from the Bible (illustrated by Theodore Nadejen). New York: Cosmopolitan, 1929
  • (illustrated by Hawkins). Faber, 1947
  • (illustrated by Ardizzone). Knopf, 1961; reprinted, 1977.
• The Dutch Cheese and the Lovely Myfanwy (illustrated by Lathrop). Knopf, 1931
  • (illustrated by Hawkins). Faber, 1946.
• The Lord Fish and Other Tales (illustrated by Rex Whistler). Faber, 1933
  • 1st U.S. edition, Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 1997.
• Letters from Mr. Walter de la Mare to Form Three. privately printed, 1936.
• Animal Stories, Chosen, Arranged, and in Some Part Re-Written. Faber, 1939; New York: Scribner, 1940.
• The Old Lion and other stories (illustrated by Irene Hawkins). Faber, 1942.
• Mr. Bumps and His Monkey (illustrated by Lathrop). Philadelphia, PA: J.C. Winston, 1942.
• The Magic Jacket, and other stories (illustrated by Irene Hawkins). Faber, 1943
  • (illustrated by Paul Kennedy). Knopf, 1962.
• The Scarecrow, and other stories (illustrated by Irene Hawkins). Faber, 1945.
• The Dutch Cheese, and other stories (illustrated by Irene Hawkins). Faber, 1946.
• Collected Stories for Children (illustrated by Irene Hawkins). Faber, 1947
  • (illustrated by Jacques), 1967.
• Dick Whittington (adapted from a story appearing in Told Again), (illustrated by Ionicus). Hulton, 1951.
• Jack and the Beanstalk (adapted from a story appearing in Told Again), (illustrated by William and Brenda Stobbs). Hulton, 1951.
• Selected Stories and Verses (edited by Eleanor Graham). Penguin, 1952.
• The Story of Joseph (illustrated by Ardizzone). Faber, 1958.
• The Story of Moses (illustrated by Ardizzone). Knopf, 1960.
• The Story of Samuel and Saul (illustrated by Ardizzone). Faber, 1960.
• A Penny a Day (illustrated by Kennedy). Knopf, 1960.
• Molly Whuppie (illustrated by Errol Le Cain). Straus, 1983.
• Visitors. Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 1986.
• The Three Sillies. Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 1991.
• The Turnip (illustrated by Kevin Hawkes).Boston: D.R. Godine, 1992.
• Walter de la Mare, Short Stories for Children (edited by Giles de la Mare). London: Giles de la Mare Publishers, 2006.

Edited

• Come Hither: A collection of rhymes and poems for the young of all ages (edited with Alec Buckels; illustrated by Buckels). Knopf, 1923
  • revised edition, 1928.
  • 3rd edition, reset and printed from new plates, 1957.
• Readings: Traditional tales told by the author (edited with Thomas Quayle; illustrated by A.H. Watson and C.T. Nightingale), (6 volumes). Oxford: Blackwell, 1925-1928; (1 volume), Knopf, 1927.
• Desert Islands and Robinson Crusoe (literary quotations and discussion), (illustrated by Rex Whistler)., Fountain Press, 1930
  • revised edition, Faber, 1932.
• Christina Rossetti, Poems chosen. Newtown, Montgomeryshire, UK: Gregynog Press, 1930.
• The Eighteen-Eighties: Essays by Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature. Macmillan, 1930.
• Tom Tiddler's Ground: A book of poetry for the junior and middle schools (illustrations from Thomas Bewick), (3 volumes). Collins, 1931
  • (illustrated by Margery Gill), (one volume). Knopf, 1962.
• Old Rhymes and New: Chosen for use in schools (2 volumes). Constable, 1932.
• Early One Morning in the Spring: Chapters on children and on childhood as It Is revealed in particular in early memories and in early writings. Macmillan, 1935.
• Behold, This Dreamer! (essays), Knopf, 1939.
• Love. Faber, 1943; New York: Morrow, 1946.

The Listeners - Walter de la Mare - Poem - Animation

ALL THAT'S PAST - Walter de la Mare

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

See also

• Georgian poets
• Children's poets
• List of British poets
• Timeline of British poetry

References

• Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. pp. 96-97. 
• Imagination of the Heart:The Life of Walter de la Mare (1993) Theresa Whistler
• Walter de la Mare (1966) Doris Ross McCrosson

External links

Poems

• Walter de la Mare in The New Poetry: An anthology: "The Listeners", "An Epitaph"
• Walter de la Mare in Poetry: A magazine of verse, 1912-1922: "The Reawakening," "Two Epitaphs," "The Hostage"
• 8 poems by de la Mare: "There Blooms No Bus in May," "Winter" [1916], "The Fairy in Winter," "Winter [1906]," "The Reawakening," "Autumn," "Summer Evening," "Mistletoe"
• Walter de la Mare in Georgian Poetry 1913-15 (7 poems)
• Walter de la Mare in Georgian Poetry 1920-22 (6 poems)
• 45 Poems of Walter de la Mare, 1873-1956 at Ambleside Online
• Walter de la Mare at PoemHunter (88 poems)
• Walter de la Mare at AllPoetry (91 poems)

Audio / video

• Walter de la Mare at The Poetry Archive
• Walter de la Mare poems at YouTube
• "The Listeners" (song based on de la Mare's poem)

Books

• Works by Walter de la Mare at Project Gutenberg
• Walter de la Mare at the Online Books Page
• Walter de la Mare at Amazon.com

About

• Walter de la Mare in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Walter de la Mare at NNDB
• Walter de la Mare in Twickenham
• Walter de la Mare database

Etc.

• Walter de la Mare Society Official website