A Beginning And Other Stories: Walter de la Mare

[poliphilo]

Published in 1955- the year before his death- A Beginning is a sweeping together of the uncollected stories- written over a period of at least half a century- that de la Mare thought worth preserving. He tells us, teasingly, that one of them was written while Victoria was still on the throne. I think I've spotted it; it's the one that's least ambiguous.

De la Mare's fiction occupies a space between Henry James and surrealism. Sometimes he's closer to one, sometimes to the other.  Worlds of rural and suburban gentility are infiltrated by the numinous, the demonic, the unclassifiably odd.  As in Saki, as in Wodehouse, there are lots of aunts.

Comments

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I loved a collection of his stories when I was about 9 - was given it as a school prize and still own it. They are very "dark", and - yes - many aunts. I don't know this collection - my Collected Stories was given to me in 1952

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've always loved de la Mare.