Walter de la Mare

Yui Kajita is a scholar of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, a literary translator and an illustrator. Angela Leighton is Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. A. J. Nickerson is Katherine Jex-Blake Research Fellow and College Lecturer at Girton College, Cambridge.

‘Among the chapters specifically focused upon de la Mare, Angela Leighton’s on the “riddling” nature of his work, and Mark Valentine on the “ghostliness” of the writing are especially rewarding. The chapter by Yui Kajita on de la Mare and Hardy pays scrupulous attention to a writer whose prose and poetry would loom large in the imagination of the Georgians and the Dymock group… this extensive critical and biographical reconsideration of Walter de la Mare will help to revive radically our understanding of the aesthetic and thematic influence he exerted at this crucial time.’ Roger Ebbatson, Journal of the Friends of the Dymock Poets

• Introduction PART I: LITERARY NETWORKS The Secret Language of Tapping: Walter de la Mare and Thomas Hardy Yui Kajita ‘The close, the curious, the deep’: Walter de la Mare and Henry James Adrian Poole Corresponding Listeners: Walter de la Mare and Robert Frost Catherine Charlwood Sharing the Inkpot: Walter de la Mare and Forrest Reid Andrew Doyle ‘That remoter, changeless England’: Walter de la Mare and Edward Thomas Guy Cuthbertson Exploring the Empty House: Walter de la Mare and Katherine Mansfield Jenny McDonnell Visible Swans: Walter de la Mare and T. S. Eliot A. J. Nickerson Ghosts: Walter de la Mare and Rex Whistler Peter Davidson ‘O where are you going?’: Walter de la Mare and W. H. Auden Seamus PerryPART II: CRITICAL READINGS Riddling de la Mare Angela Leighton Walter de la Mare, Nonsense, and Animals Will May Walter de la Mare and the Modern Ghost Story Mark Valentine Walter de la Mare, W. H. Davies, and Georgian PoetryRory Waterman Literary Impressionism in Walter de la Mare’s Reviews: Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Dorothy Richardson Adam Guy The Critical Reception of Walter de la Mare and the Legacy of I. A. RichardsWilliam WoottenPART III: ARTISTIC RESPONSES In the Silence Andrew Motion A Return David WheatleyIsledZaffar Kunial The Travellers Vidyan Ravinthiran Walter de la Mare: A Landscape Peter Scupham Peacock Pie A. E. Stallings Fare Well, cont. Camille Ralphs Some Words Between Them Erica McAlpine The Wreck Suzannah V. Evans Syllablings Gregory Leadbetter When the Italians Paul Muldoon The Lost, the Haunted, and the Holy: De la Mare and the Otherworldly Rowan Williams Setting Walter de la Mare to Music Robin HollowayPART IV: ARCHIVES Walter de la Mare’s Working Library Anne Welsh Walter de la Mare Archives Giles de la Mare