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Walter de la Mare [1873-1956] ENG
Ranked #82 in the top 380 poets
Votes 84%: 772 up, 148 down

Supernatural, ghost stories. Subtle psychological horror stories.

Walter de la Mare  is one of England`s greatest poets and a famous writer especially for children. Probably best known for his poem `The Listeners`  pub 1912 and his collection `Peacock Pie` pub 1913.Sir Walter de la Mare was born at Charlton, Kent, in the south of England, of well-to-do parents. His father, James Edward Delamaere, was an official of the Bank of England. His mother, Lucy Sophia (Browning) Delamare, was related to the poet Robert Browning. He was educated in London at St. Paul`s Cathedral Choir School, which he left at age 16. From 1890 to 1908 he worked in London in the accounting department of the Anglo-American Oil Company. His career as a writer started from about 1895 and he continued to publish to the end of his life. His first published story, `Kismet` (1895), appeared in the Sketch under the pseudonym Walter Ramal. 

In 1908 de la Mare was awarded a yearly government pension of £100, and he devoted himself entirely to writing. He retired to Taplow in Buckinghamshire, where he lived with his wife, Constance Elfrida Ingpen, and four children. His son Richard became chairman of Faber & Faber, and published several of his father`s books. In 1915 he became of of the legatees of his fellow poet Rupert Brooke. De la Mare received the CH in 1948, and the OM in 1953. He died at Twickenham, near London, on June 22, 1958. De la Mare is buried in St Paul`s Cathedral. 

His first stories and poems De la Mare wrote for periodicals, among others for The Sketch, and published in 1902 a collection of poetry, SONGS OF CHILDHOOD, under the name Walter Ramal. It attracted little notice. Subsequently De la Mare published many volumes of poetry for both adults and children. In 1904 appeared under his own name the prose romance HENRY BROCKEN, in which the young hero encounters writers form the past. THE RETURN (1910) was an eerie story of spirit possession. Arthur Lawford suspects that an eighteenth-century pirate, Nicholas Sabathier, is seizing control of his personality. "`Here lie ye bones of one, Nicholas Sabathier,` he began murmuring again - `merely bones, mind you; brains and heart are quite another story. And it`s pretty certain the fellow had some kind of brains. Besides, poor devil, he killed himself. That seems to hint at brains..." 

De la Mare`s first successful book was The Listeners; the title poem is one of his most anthologized pieces. In the work supernatural presence haunts the solitary Traveller, the typical speaker of his poems: "Is there anybody there? said the Traveller, / Knocking on the moonlit door; / And his horse in the silence champed the grasses / Of the forest`s ferny floor.... / But no one descended to the Traveller; / No head from the leaf-fringed sill / Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, / Where he stood perplexed and still." In 1923 he produced a collection of other people`s poetry, COME HITHER. In his poems de la Mare has described the English sea and coast, the secret and hidden world of nature. His favorite themes, childhood, death, dreams, commonplace objects and events, de la Mare examined with a touch of mystery and often with an undercurrent of melancholy. His novels have been reprinted many times in horror collections because of their sense of wonder, and also hidden malevolence. However, De la Mare did not have the morbid atmosphere of Poe, but his dreamlike visions had much similarities with Blake.

Children, Georgian poets, Gothic

YearsCountryPoetInteraction
1824-1905
SCO
George MacDonald
→ influenced Walter de la Mare


WorkLangRating
The Listeners
eng
128
The Scarecrow
eng
58
Silver
eng
52
Some One
eng
33
Tartary
eng
18
A Song of Enchantment
eng
9
Hi!
eng
7
The Linnet
eng
7
The Song Of Shadows
eng
7
Arabia
eng
6
The Mocking Fairy
eng
6
An Epitaph
eng
5
Mr Nobody
eng
4
Snow
eng
4
The Sunken Garden
eng
4
John Mouldy
eng
3
Moonlight
eng
3
The Veil
eng
3
Comfort
eng
2
Fare Well
eng
2
Good-bye
eng
2
Martha
eng
2
Mistletoe
eng
2
Mulla-Mulgars` Journey Song
eng
2
The Keys of Morning
eng
2
Tit for Tat
eng
2
"How Sleep the Brave"
eng
1
All That`s Past
eng
1
Alone
eng
1
At Ease
eng
1
Bones
eng
1
Full Moon
eng
1
Ghost
eng
1
Miss T
eng
1
Music
eng
1
Napoleon
eng
1
Nod
eng
1
November
eng
1
Old Susan
eng
1
Sunk Lyonesse
eng
1
The Sleeper
eng
1
The Song of the Mad Prince
eng
1
The Spirit of Air
eng
1
The Three Strangers
eng
1
Wanderers
eng
1
When the Rose is Faded
eng
1
Why?
eng
1
Winter
eng
1
"As I was walking"
eng
0
"One moment take thy rest"
eng
0
Alexander
eng
0
All But Blind
eng
0
Before Dawn
eng
0
Brueghel`s Winter
eng
0
Gloria Mundi
eng
0
I can`t abear
eng
0
Melmillo
eng
0
Miss Loo
eng
0
Nicholas Nye
eng
0
Off the Ground
eng
0
Sephina
eng
0
Sleep
eng
0
Sotto Voce
eng
0
Suppose
eng
0
The Children Of Stare
eng
0
The Corner Stone
eng
0
The Empty House
eng
0
The Fly
eng
0
The Fool Rings His Bells
eng
0
The Ghost
eng
0
The Huntsmen
eng
0
The Market-Place
eng
0
The Moth
eng
0
The Old Men
eng
0
The Pigs and the Charcoal-burner
eng
0
The Remonstrance
eng
0
The Ruin
eng
0
The Scribe
eng
0
The Seas of England
eng
0
The Ship Of Rio
eng
0
The Song of Finis
eng
0
The Strangers
eng
0
The Titmouse
eng
0
The Tryst
eng
0
The Widow
eng
0
Tom`s Little Dog
eng
0
Unstooping
eng
0
Up and Down
eng
0
Winter Dusk
eng
0

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