Walter de la Mare

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Walter de la Mare

Walter John de la Mare (born April 25, 1873 in Charlton , Kent , † June 22, 1956 in Twickenham , London ) was an English poet , writer of short stories , novels and children's books.

Life

De la Mare was born in Kent, the son of a church minister. His family is descended from French Huguenots .

His first job at an oil company allowed him enough free time to devote himself to writing. He initially published under the pseudonym Walter Ramal. He later worked as an accountant for eighteen years . A government grant of 100 British pounds enabled him to work as a freelance writer from 1908 and he moved with his family to Buckinghamshire.

His poetry earned him high recognition and he was awarded honorary doctorates from the Universities of Oxford , London and Bristol . From 1918 Walter de la Mare was a member of the jury on the committee for the award of the Hawthornden Prize , the oldest literary prize in Great Britain.

In 1955 he was elected as an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

A plaque was placed on his home, Southend House in Twickenham, where he lived from 1940 to 1956. His grave is in London, in St Paul's Cathedral . There is a Walter de la Mare Society that has been publishing a magazine since 1998.

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De la Mare is best known for his imaginative children's and nonsense verses. In his narrative works he represents a romantic worldview that is directed against the predominance of the “real” or “visible”, in which that which lies beyond the sensual experience repeatedly breaks into the real world.

Our only hope is to break away from realism in its traditional meaning. An imaginary experience is not only just as real, but far more real than an intellectual one.

He wrote several subtle children's stories for the Joy Street yearbook , which appeared in the 1920s and 1930s. He also wrote some subtle horror stories, which were published in German translation in the series Bibliothek des Haus Usher under the title Aus der Tief in 1973 by Insel-Verlag and later by Suhrkamp-Verlag as a paperback.

bibliography

  • Songs of Childhood (1902)
  • Henry Brocken (1904)
  • The Three Mulla Mulgars (1910) Ger. The Journey of the Three Malla Malgars , 1988
  • The Return (1910)
  • The Listeners (1912)
  • Peacock Pie (1913)
  • Seaton's aunt (1921)
  • Memoirs of a Midget (1921) Ger. Colorful dream year , 1947; and Memoirs of Miss M. , 1974
  • The Riddle and other tales (1923) Ger. "From the depths", Frankfurt am Main 1972 [selection]
  • The Connoisseur (1926)
  • On the edge (1930)
  • The wind blows over (1936)
  • Best stories of de la Mare (1942) Ger. The orgy - an idyll and other stories , Zurich 1965
  • Collected stories for children (1950) Ger. Strange Stories , 1962
  • O Lovely England (1952)
  • A beginning (1956)

Editions in German

  • Saint Valentine's Day . Fantastic stories. Zurich 1984
  • The masterpiece and the princess . Stories; in: Children in World Literature . Zurich 1992
  • The lost track . Narrative. Frankfurt am Main 1993

literature

  • Jutta Böck: Literary Alienation in the English Short Story of the 20th Century. The Example of Walter de la Mare . WVT, Trier 1993

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Henry Seidel Canby (Ed.): Saturday Review. Volume 6. Saturday Review Associates, 1929, p. 1161.
  2. ^ JC Squire, Rolfe Arnold Scott-James: The London Mercury. Volume 33. Field Press Limited, 1936, p. 102.
  3. ^ Honorary Members: Walter de la Mare. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 9, 2019 .
  4. ^ A Medley of Prose & Verse for Boys and Girls published by Basil Blackwell Oxford 1923ff
personal data
SURNAME Mare, Walter de la
ALTERNATIVE NAMES de la Mare, Walter John (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English poet, author of short stories, novels and children's books
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlton , Kent
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1956
Place of death Twickenham , London