Walter de la Mare

Walter de la Mare, in full Walter John de la Mare, (born April 25, 1873, Charlton, Kent, England—died June 22, 1956, Twickenham, Middlesex), was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", and for a highly acclaimed selection of subtle psychological horror stories, amongst them "Seaton's Aunt" and "All Hallows".

In 1921, his novel Memoirs of a Midget won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and his post-war Collected Stories for Children won the 1947 Carnegie Medal for British children's books.

Life

His father was a Frenchman by his origin, and the mother was a Scotswoman. In the childhood, he sang well and finished the St Paul’s Choir School of London. His parents were poor and the family was large, and since the age of sixteen, the boy had to earn his living.

After the completion of the church choir school, at the age of 16, the future poet began to work in the London office of the Anglo-American oil company. For as much as nineteen years, De La Mare worked in this office as a modest employee. For almost ten years he combined his literary activities with the basic work.

In the 1892, De La Mare joined the Amateur Drama club Esperance, where he at once got acquainted and fell in love with Constance Elfrida (Elfy) Ingpen, a performer of the leading role. Elfy was ten years older, than Walter. On the 4th of August, 1899 De La Mare and Elfy married. They had four children.

Only in the 1908, Walter De La Mare got a possibility to retire from service. By this time, he received a Civil List pension, and finally, the literature began to give him livelihood. Since that moment, Walter De La Mare began his life of a professional writer. His books – verses and prose – appeared regularly. And already in the thirtieth-fortieth years of the XXth century, he began to be considered one of the most significant poets of England.

Creative Work of Walter De La Mare

De La Mare began to publish his poems from the 1900.

The first collection of the poet “Songs of Childhood” that appeared in the1902 and was published under the pen- name Walter Ramal brought neither glory nor money. However, other poetic collections and novels followed it (“Henry Brocken”, 1904; “The Return”, 1910; “The Three Mulla Mulgars”, 1910; “The Listeners”, 1912; “Peacock Pie”, 1913).

The verses for children, which not only boys and girls, but their parents loved, brought the greatest glory to the poet. He also wrote stories and essays. And from the 1925 until the 1946, he composed many miraculous fairy tales. He managed to create even mysterious stories, which he so well told or read in evenings near the fireplace.

De La Mare wrote several collections of psychological mysticism stories; “Seaton’s Aunt” and “Out of the Deep” are the most known of them. His novel “Memoirs of a Midget” (1921) received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the science fiction.

Poetry Collections

• Songs of Childhood (1902)
• Poems (1906)
• The Listeners (1912)
• Peacock Pie (1913) (editions illustrated by W. Heath Robinson [1916], Claud Lovat Fraser [1924], Rowland Emett [1941] and Edward Ardizzone [1946])
• The Sunken Garden and Other Poems (1917)
• Motley and Other Poems (1918)
• The Veil and Other Poems (1921)
• Down-Adown-Derry: A Book of Fairy Poems (1922) (illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop)
• A Child's Day: A Book of Rhymes (1924) (illustrated by Winifred Bromhall)
• Selected Poems by Walter de la Mare (1927, 1931)
• Stuff and Nonsense and So On (1927) (editions illustrated by Bold [1927] and Margaret Wolpe [1946])
• This Year: Next Year (1937) (illustrated by Harold Jones)
• Bells and Grass (1941) (editions illustrated by Rowland Emett [1941] and Dorothy P. Lathrop [1942])
• Time Passes and Other Poems (1942)
• Inward Companion (1950)
• O Lovely England (1952)
• Walter de la Mare: The Complete Poems, ed. Giles de la Mare (1969)

Walter De La Mare died in the 1956 at the height of fame. The poet was modest, but his contemporaries appreciated him highly. St Paul’s Cathedral became the last resting place of Walter De La Mare, where the child voices have sounded already for eight hundred years and where he had sung himself once.