Walter John de la Mare, OM CH (April 25, 1873 – June 22, 1956), was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and "The Listeners". He was born in Kent (at 83 Maryon Road, Charlton^[1] - now part of the London Borough of Greenwich), descended from a family of French Huguenots, and was educated at St Paul's Choir School. 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 Oil for eighteen years while struggling to bring up a family, but nevertheless found enough time to write, and in 1908, though the efforts of Sir Henry Newbolt he received a Civil List pension which enabled him to concentrate on writing; For other Orders see Order of Merit (disambiguation). ... The Order of the Companions of Honour is a British and Commonwealth Order. ... is the 115th day of the year (116th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1873 (MDCCCLXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... is the 173rd day of the year (174th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... A car from 1956 Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... British poetry is poetry written by British poets. ... This article is in need of attention. ... British literature is literature from the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. ... A male Caucasian toddler child A child (plural: children) is a young human. ... For other uses, see Kent (disambiguation). ... Charlton is a place in south-east London, in the London Borough of Greenwich, sandwiched between east Greenwich and the Woolwich Dockyard area of west Woolwich. ... The London Borough of Greenwich is an Inner London borough in south-east London, England. ... From the 16th to the 18th century the name Huguenot was applied to a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, historically known as the French Calvinists. ... This article is about the cathedral church of the diocese of London. ... Standard Oil was a predominant integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. ... Sir Henry John Newbolt (June 6, 1862 - April 19, 1938) was an English author and poet. ... A civil list is a list of individuals to whom money is paid by the government. ...

One of de la Mare's special interests was the imagination, and this contributed both to the popularity of his children's writing and to his other work occasionally being taken less seriously than it deserved. For other uses, see Imagination (disambiguation). ...

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 Prize for fiction. Founded 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. ...

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, Dante, and the rest of the great poets lay. Shakespeare redirects here. ... DANTE is also a digital audio network. ...

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 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). A statue of Rupert Brooke in Rugby Rupert Chawner Brooke (August 3, 1887 – April 23, 1915) was an English poet known for his idealistic War Sonnets written during the First World War (especially The Soldier), as well as for his poetry written outside of war, especially The Old Vicarage, Grantchester... A fakir or faqir (Arabic: فقیر poor) is a Sufi, especially one who performs feats of endurance or apparent magic. ... Narrowly, a visionary is one who experiences a supernatural vision or apparition. ...

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 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. See Adult. ... The word spectrum (plural, spectra) has many uses: // Common nouns The Spectrum article explains why so many things are called by this name The spectrum of activity of a drug The political spectrum of opinion The economic spectrum The bipolar spectrum, in psychology The autistic spectrum, in psychology In the... Logic (from ancient Greek λόγος (logos), meaning reason) is the study of arguments. ... Deductive reasoning is the process of reaching a conclusion that is guaranteed to follow, if the evidence provided is true and the reasoning used to reach the conclusion is correct. ... Intuition has many meanings across many cultures, including: quick and ready insight seemingly independent of previous experiences and empirical knowledge immediate apprehension or cognition knowledge or conviction gained by intuition the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference. ... Aristotle appears first to establish the mental behaviour of induction as a category of reasoning. ... For beauty as a characteristic of a persons appearance, see Physical attractiveness. ... Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy, François Lemoyne, 1737 For other uses, see Truth (disambiguation). ...

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" and "imagination" when discussing the same idea elsewhere. For other uses, see Reason (disambiguation). ...

The Listeners

"The Listeners" is Walter de la Mare's most famous poem. It narrates (in third person) the story of a mysterious man coming to a house in the night on horseback, and subsequently failing, to deliver a message and fulfill a promise. Nobody is there but the "Listeners" (named in the title), who seem to be merely spectral. It is apparent that "The Listeners" hear his knocking and request for assistance, however they choose to ignore it. Some people think that the poem represents missed opportunity on the part of the traveler. The house meant something to him, so he returned to it, but he came back too late and there was nothing left but shadows and memories. Alternatively he may have promised to deliver a message from an acquaintance : "'Tell them I came, and no one answered,/ That I kept my word,' he said"

It is also sometimes thought to be referenced in The Third Policeman. The Narrator visits a house and knocks twice, but to no avail, as in "The Listeners". The Third Policeman is Flann OBriens second novel, written in 1939 and 1940 but not published until 1967, after the authors death. ...

Come Hither

Come Hither was an anthology, mostly of poetry with some prose. It has a frame story, 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 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. ANThology is the first major label album by Alien Ant Farm released on March 6, 2001 in the USA and March 19, 2001 in the UK. // Their first single, Smooth Criminal, was a cover of Michael Jacksons song Smooth Criminal, which started to bring popularity to the band. ... A frame story (also frame tale, frame narrative, etc. ... The 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. ...

Works

Novels

• Henry Brocken (1904)
• The Three Mulla Mulgars (1910) — also published as The Three Royal Monkeys
• The Return (1910)
• Memoirs of a Midget (1921)
• At First Sight (1930)

Short story collections

• The Riddle and Other Stories (1923)
• Ding Dong Bell (1924)
• Broomsticks and Other Tales (1925)
• The Connoisseur and Other Stories (1926)
• On the Edge (1930)
• The Lord Fish (1930)
• The Walter de la Mare Omnibus (1933)
• The Wind Blows Over (1936)
• The Nap and Other Stories (1936)
• The Best Stories of Walter de la Mare (1942)
• A Beginning and Other Stories (1955)
• Eight Tales (1971)

Eight Tales is a collection of stories by author Walter de la Mare. ...

Poetry

• Songs of Childhood (1902)
• The Silver Penny (1902)
• The Listeners (1912)
• Peacock Pie (1913)
• The Marionettes (1918)
• O Lovely England (1952)
• Silver
• "Happy England"
• All But Blind
• All Thats Past
• Bones
• Moonlight
• Why?
• The scarecrow
• Winter
• "The Storm"

Plays

• Crossings: A Fairy Play (1923)

Nonfiction

• Some Women Novelists of the 'Seventies (1929)
• Desert Islands and Robinson Crusoe (1930)

Anthologies edited

• Come Hither (1923)
• Behold, This Dreamer! (1939)

Notes

is the 266th day of the year (267th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ...

Sources

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

Everett Franklin Bleiler (born 1920) is an editor and bibliographer of science fiction and Fantasy. ...

External links

• Works by Walter de la Mare on Wikisource

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Walter de la Mare

• Works by Walter de la Mare at Project Gutenberg
• Walter de la Mare in Twickenham
• Walter de la Mare database

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See also

• List of horror fiction authors
• The Queen's Book of the Red Cross