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Walter de la Mare was born in Charlton in Kent on April 25, 1873. Born to James Edward and Lucy Sophie de la Mare. He was educated at St. Paul's Cathedral Choir School in London. It was at St. Paul's that young de la Mare began his journey as a life long writer. At sixteen years of age he founded the school's first magazine called The Choristers Journal and de la Mare contributed much of his own work for the first few volumes of the magazine (McCrosson 12). Unable to go on to college, he left school to join with the company Standard Oil Company as their bookkeeper (Fleischmann 276). He stayed with the company for nineteen years. De la Mare married in 1899 to a girl named Constance Elfrida Igpen. The couple settled in and had four children two girls and two boys (McCrosson 12). In 1895 he was published in The Sketch, this was the first time being published since his school magazine venture (McCrosson 12). Walter de la Mare's first short story was published in the Cornhill Magazine in 1896. There was an introductory note stating that the readers "could hardly fail to think that the spirit of A.E. Poe is once more abroad" (Fleischmann 276). In 1908 de la M
Yet, de la Mare seemed to know automatically what would appeal to children (McCrosson 64). The poem titled At the Keyhole is an example of this: "Grill me some bones," said the Cobbler, "Some bones, my pretty Sue; "I'm tired of my lonesome with heels and soles, Springsides and uppers too; A mouse in the wainscoating is nibbling; A wind in the keyhole drones; And a sheet webbed over my candle, Susie,-- "Grill me some bones!" "Grill me some bones," said the Cobbler, "I sat at my tic-tac-to; And a footstep came to my door and stopped, And a hand groped to and fro; and I peered up over my boot and last; And my feet went cold as stones;-- I saw an eye at the keyhole, Susie!-- Grill me some bones!" (McCrosson 50)The "grilling of bones" appeal to childen's morbid curiosity about the grisly details of life and death. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. They are prominently woven throughout his works. The questioning and preoccupation with death and the secrets that it holds is in The Stranger, "Half-hidden in a graveyard, In the blackness of a yew, Where never living creature stirs, Nor sunbeam pierces through, Is a tomb-stone, green and crooked-- Its faded legend gone-- With one rain-worn cherub's head To sing of the unknown There, where the dusk is falling, Silence broods so deep It seems tht every air that breathes Sighs from the fields of sleep. 1953 (McCrosson 52)It sounds like he is having a little fun with the concept of death and the questioning we do to ourselves. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. The beginning lines start with the speaker believing that the girl is a simpleton because: Every lesson I allot, As soon as learned is clean forgot. I believe that people are going to bring his name into more of a prominent place in the future. In his poetry for children he also goes from one end of the spectrum to the other.
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Acceptance Essays
