Walter John de la Mare ,
OMThe Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
CHThe Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry or religion....
(25 April 1873 – 22 June 1956) was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and the poem "The Listeners".
He was born in Kent (at 83 Maryon Road, Charlton, now part of the
London Borough of GreenwichThe London Borough of Greenwich is an Inner London borough in south-east London, England. Taking its name from the historic town of Greenwich, the present borough was formed in 1965 by the amalgamation of the former area of the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich with part of the Metropolitan...
), descended from a family of French
HuguenotThe Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
s, and was educated at
St Paul's Cathedral SchoolSt. Paul's Cathedral School is a school associated with St Paul's Cathedral in London and is located in New Change in the City of London.The School has around 220 pupils, most of whom are day pupils, both boys and girls, including up to 40 boy choristers who are all boarders and who singing the...
.
His first book,
Songs of Childhood, was published under the name Walter Ramal. He worked in the statistics department of the London office of
Standard OilStandard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
for eighteen years while struggling to bring up a family, but nevertheless found enough time to write, and, in 1908, through the efforts of Sir Henry Newbolt he received a
Civil List-United Kingdom:In the United Kingdom, the Civil List is the name given to the annual grant that covers some expenses associated with the Sovereign performing their official duties, including those for staff salaries, State Visits, public engagements, ceremonial functions and the upkeep of the...
pension which enabled him to concentrate on writing.
De la Mare also wrote some subtle psychological horror stories; "Seaton's Aunt" and "Out of the Deep" are noteworthy examples. His 1921 novel,
Memoirs of a Midget, won the
James Tait Black Memorial PrizeFounded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...
for fiction.
The imagination
De la Mare described two distinct "types" of imagination – although "aspects" might be a better term: the childlike and the boylike. It was at the border between the two that Shakespeare,
DanteDelivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
, and the rest of the great poets lay.
De la Mare claimed that all children fall into the category of having a childlike imagination at first, which is usually replaced at some point in their lives. In his lecture, "
Rupert BrookeRupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier...
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,
fakirThe fakir or faqir ; ) Derived from faqr is a Muslim Sufi ascetic in Middle East and South Asia. The Faqirs were wandering Dervishes teaching Islam and living on alms....
s, who sink again and again out of the noise and fever of existence and into a waking vision." Doris Ross McCrosson summarises 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 two extremes of the
spectrumA spectrum is a condition or value that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary infinitely within a continuum.Spectrum may also refer to:-Physical science:* Electromagnetic spectrum...
of adult minds: the mind moulded by the boylike is "logical" and "deductive". That shaped by the childlike becomes "
intuitiveIntuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. "The word 'intuition' comes from the Latin word 'intueri', which is often roughly translated as meaning 'to look inside'’ or 'to contemplate'." Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify...
,
inductiveInductive reasoning, also known as induction or inductive logic, is a kind of reasoning that constructs or evaluates propositions that are abstractions of observations. It is commonly construed as a form of reasoning that makes generalizations based on individual instances...
." 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 "
reasonReason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
" and "imagination" when discussing the same idea elsewhere.
Writer
Joan AikenJoan Delano Aiken MBE was an English novelist. She was born in Rye, East Sussex, into a family of writers, including her father, American poet Conrad Aiken , her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge and her brother John Aiken Joan Delano Aiken MBE (4 September 1924 – 4 January 2004) was an English novelist....
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.
Come Hither
Come Hither was an anthology, edited by De la Mare, mostly of poetry with some prose. It has a
frame storyA frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
, and can be read on several levels. It was first published in 1923, and was a success; further editions followed. Alongside the children's literature aspect, it also provides a selection of the leading
Georgian poetsThe Georgian poets were, by the strictest definition, those whose works appeared in a series of five anthologies named Georgian Poetry, published by Harold Monro and edited by Edward Marsh. The first volume contained poems written in 1911 and 1912. The poets included Edmund Blunden, Rupert Brooke,...
(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.
Supernaturalism
De la Mare was also a significant writer of ghost stories.
John CluteJohn Frederick Clute is a Canadian born author and critic who has lived in Britain since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part of science fiction's history."...
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 TalesEight Tales is a collection of stories by author Walter de la Mare. It was released in 1971 and was the author's first collection of stories published by Arkham House. It was published in an edition of 2,992 copies...
,
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 three volumes issued by Giles de la Mare Publishers, London. De la Mare also wrote two supernatural novels,
Henry Brocken (1904) and
The Return (1910). For children, De la Mare wrote the fairy tale
The Three Mulla Mulgars (1910, AKA
The Three Royal Monkeys), praised by literary historian Julia Briggs as a "neglected masterpiece" and by critic
Brian StablefordBrian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...
as a "classic animal fantasy".
Gary William CrawfordGary William Crawford is an American writer and small press publisher.He is the founder and editor of Gothic Press, which since 1979 has published books and periodicals in the field of Gothic literature. From 1979 to 1987, Crawford produced six issues of the journal Gothic, which features...
has described de la Mare's
supernatural fiction for adults as being "among the finest to appear in the first half of this century".
BoucherAnthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...
and
McComasJesse Francis McComas was an American science fiction editor. McComas wrote several stories on his own in the 1950s using both his own name and the pseudonym Webb Marlowe....
, however, dismissed his 1949
Collected Tales, saying "we freely admit we find Mr. de la Mare's self-consciously subtle wordiness unreadable."
Several writers of supernatural fiction, including
Robert AickmanRobert Fordyce Aickman was an English conservationist and writer of fiction and nonfiction. As a writer, he is best known for his supernatural fiction, which he described as "strange stories".-Life:...
and
Ramsey CampbellJohn Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction author.Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T...
, have cited de la Mare's fiction as an inspiration for their own work.
Family
Walter John de la Mare was born to James Edward de la Mare, a clerk at the bank of England, and Lucy Sophia Browning (James' second wife), daughter of Scottish naval surgeon and author Dr Colin Arrott Browning. The assertion that Lucy was related to poet
Robert BrowningRobert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
has been found to be incorrect. He had two brothers, Francis Arthur Edward and James Herbert ('Bert'), and four 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.
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. Elfie was ten years older than De la Mare. On 4 August 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
AnerleyAnerley is a district of South London, England, located in the London Borough of Bromley. It is situated south south-east of Charing Cross. Anerley is geographically an outer lying area of London, although it is considered to have characteristics of an Inner city suburb...
was the scene of many parties, notable for imaginative games of charades. In 1940 Elfie was diagnosed with
Parkinson's diseaseParkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
and spent the rest of her life as an invalid, eventually dying in 1943. From 1940 until his death, De la Mare lived in South End House, Montpelier Row,
TwickenhamTwickenham is a large suburban town southwest of central London. It is the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and one of the locally important district centres identified in the London Plan...
, the same street where
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron TennysonAlfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
had lived a century earlier. In 1947 he suffered from a coronary thrombosis and died of another in 1956.
Novels
- Henry Brocken (1904)
- The Three Mulla Mulgars (1910) – also published as The Three Royal Monkeys (children's novel)
- The Return (1910; revised edition 1922; second revised edition 1945)
- Memoirs of a Midget (1921)
Short story collections
- The Riddle and Other Stories (1923)
- Ding Dong Bell (1924)
- Broomsticks and Other Tales (1925) (children's stories)
- The Connoisseur and Other Stories (1926)
- On the Edge (1930)
- The Lord Fish (1930) (children's stories)
- The Walter de la Mare Omnibus (1933)
- The Wind Blows Over (1936)
- The Nap and Other Stories (1936)
- Stories, Essays and Poems (1938)
- The Best Stories of Walter de la Mare (1942)
- Collected Stories for Children
Collected Stories for Children is a collection of seventeen short stories by Walter de la Mare, published in 1947. The book was awarded the Carnegie Medal for 1947, the first collection of stories to win the award, and the first time that previously published material had been considered.-The...
(1947)
- A Beginning and Other Stories (1955)
- Eight Tales
Eight Tales is a collection of stories by author Walter de la Mare. It was released in 1971 and was the author's first collection of stories published by Arkham House. It was published in an edition of 2,992 copies...
(1971)
- Walter de la Mare, Short Stories 1895–1926 (1996), Walter de la Mare, Short Stories 1927–1956 (2000), and Walter de la Mare, Short Stories for Children (2006) (Complete edition, ed. Giles de la Mare)
Poetry collections
- Songs of Childhood (1902)
- The Listeners (1912)
- Peacock Pie (1913)
- The Marionettes (1918)
- O Lovely England (1952)
- Walter de la Mare, The Complete Poems Giles de la Mare (1969)
Nonfiction
- Some Women Novelists of the 'Seventies (1929)
- Desert Islands and Robinson Crusoe (1930)
Anthologies edited
- Come Hither (1923; new and revised edition, 1928; third edition, reset and printed from new plates, 1957)
- 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. (1935)
- Behold, This Dreamer! Of reverie, night, sleep, dream, love-dreams, nightmare, death, the unconscious, the imagination, divination, the artist, and kindred subjects. (1939)
- Love (1943)
See also
Sources
- Imagination of the Heart:The Life of Walter de la Mare (1993) Theresa Whistler
- Walter de la Mare (1966) Doris Ross McCrosson
External links