General Studies

Aiken, Conrad.  Scepticisms:  Notes on Contemporary Poetry.  New York:  Knopf, 1919.

Discusses de la Mare's poem "Motley" in terms of the imaginative poem and realist poem.  Discuses de la Mare's Peacock Pie as some of the best children's poetry ever written.

Anon.  Reader's Guide to Fifty Modern Poets.  New York: Barnes and Noble, 1979.

Briggs, Julia.  Night Visitors: The Rise and Fall of the English Ghost Story. London: Faber, 1977.

An excellent study of the ghost stories that notes the influence of Henry James.  De la Mare presents "brilliantly illuminated fragments of experience.  His imaginative world is essentially subjective, an intensifying gaze focused on a sequence of curious, perhaps inexplicable events."  Concludes that de la Mare's ghost stories ask questions about the meaning of life and death, a question later taken up by Robert Aickman in the 1960's and 1970's.

Cavaliero, Glen. The Supernatural and English Fiction.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1995.

A good study of the dozen or so stories described as ghost stories.  Regards the novel The Return as de la Mare's greatest achievement in this vein. Notes "as a writer of ghostly tales he is among the masters of the craft, unmatched in his ability to evoke the twilight territory of psychic borderlands."

Cecil, David.  The English Poets. London: Collins, 1942.

Child, Harold.  Essays and Reflections.  London, 1948.

Church, Richard.  British Authors. New York: Longmans, Green, 1948.

Colavito, Jason.  Knowing Fear: Science, Knowledge and the Development of the Horror Genre.  Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

A single paragraph is devoted to The Return that discusses it in the light of Spiritualism.

Cunliffe, J.W.  English Literature in the Twentieth Century.  New York: Macmillan, 1933.

In a chapter on the Georgian poets, de la Mare figures.  Remarks that his superb children's poetry can be appreciated by adults as well.  Says that the famous poem "The Listeners" is a children's poem for adults.

Danielson, Henry.  Bibliographies of Modern Authors.  London:  Bookman's Journal, 1921.

Fairchild, Hoxie Neale.  Gods of a Changing Poetry.  Vol. 5 of Religious Trends in English Poetry.  New York:  Columbia University Press, 1962.

Studies de la Mare's poems as "unrevealed mysteries."  "De la Mare's best poems are so shadowy that it is not easy to say precisely what they mean."

Fitzgerald, Penelope.  "A Questioning Child."  The Afterlife. Ed. Terence Dooley.  New York: Counterpoint, 2003.

A collection of writings by Fitzgerald about poets who wrote about the afterlife. Briefly notes Walter de la Mare's relationship with Edward Thomas.

Forster, E.M.  The Development of English Prose Between 1918 and 1939.  Glasgow: Jackson, 1945.

Freeman, John.  English Portraits and Essays.  London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1924.

Greene E.  Writers for Children.  New York: Scribner, 1987.

Haviland, Virginia.  Children and Literature:  Views and Reviews.  New York:  Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, 1974.

Howarth, Peter.  British Poetry in the Age of Modernism.  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2005.

An entire chapter is devoted to de la Mare's ideas about the reading of poetry.  Howarth compares the view of Eliot's essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" to some of de la Mare's essays, and on a second look, they are similar.  "This fascination with the experience of absence and vacancy is central to de la Mare's outlook, with its abiding interest in ghosts, graves, and silences." Thus, one must experience the poem to understand it.  One does not need to know about the life of the poet.  The poem gives the greatest look at him.

Jarrell, Randall.  Poetry and the Age.  Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.

Johnson, Martin.  Art and Scientific Thought:  Historical Studies towards a Modern Revision of their Antagonism.  New York:  Columbia University Press, 1949. 

Jones, Llewellyn.  First Impressions:  Essays on Poetry, Criticism, and Prosody.  Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1968.

Joshi, S.T.  Classics and Commercials:  Some Notes on Horror Fiction.  New York:  Hippocampus Press, 2009.

In this collection of short pieces of commentary buy Joshi, de la Mare is mentioned in several places.

Kendon, Frank.  The Small Years.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930.

Kernahan, Coulson.  Five More Famous Living Poets.  London: T. Butterworth, 1936.

Lucas, F.L.  The Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal.  New York: Macmillan, 1936.

Lucas, John.  Modern English Poetry from Hardy to Hughes.  New York: Barnes and Noble, 1986.

A rather negative attitude toward de la Mare is summarized as follows:  "De la Mare is an interesting case because technically he is formidably well equipped and he has great gifts of ear:  his sounds and cadences are, you might say, exqauisite."  But the more one reads into de la Mare "the persistent note of plangent sadness, of sugar-sweet melancholy, becomes merely tiresome."

Lurie, Alison.  Boys and Girls Forever: Children's Classics from Cinderella to Harry Potter.  New York:  Vintage, 2004.

An excellent and sensitive study of de la Mare's stories and poetry for children.  Lurie notes that "de la Mare remained a child all his life, preferring intuition and vision to logic and reason."

Megroz, R.L.  The Dream World. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1939.

Mendelson, Farah, and Edward James.  A Short History of Fantasy.  London:  Middlesex University Press, 2009.

Mentions de la Mare's Broomsticks and Other Stories.

Muir, Edward.  The Present Age from 1914.  London, 1939.

Navarette, Susan J.  The Shape of Fear:  Horror and the Fin de Siecle Culture of Decadence.  Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1998.

A chapter is devoted to de la Mare's early tale "A: B: O".  The tale is "valuable both as a text and as a document disclosing not merely anxieties and horrors, but also the distinctive mentalite of an age, expressing itself in questions and concerns voiced by an apprentice writer who saw himself as a witness to both the death of one culture and the birth of its successor."

Oxbury, H.F. Great Britons.  Oxford University Press, 1985.

Penzoldt, Peter.  The Supernatural in Fiction.  New York:  Humanities Press, 1965.

A chapter on de la Mare famous for its assertion that de la Mare wrote tales that were "inconclusive."  Compares this to the work of Henry James, arguing that, like James, de la Mare is a leading exponent of the psychological ghost story.

Perkins, David.  A History of Modern Poetry: from the 1890's to the High Modernist Mode.  Cambridge:  The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1976.

An excellent evaluation of de la Mare in the context of the poetry of his day. Remarks that de la Mare uses the trappings of Romantic poetry to convey a peculiarly twentieth century stance.  It is as if he is writing like the Romantics after the fact.  Regards de la Mare more closely as a Symbolist poet.  Says that de la Mare has written the best poetry for children in the twentieth century.

Pinto, Vivian de Sola.  Crisis in English Poetry, 1880-1940.  London:  Hutchinson University Library, 1951.

Compares de la Mare to Chesterton and finds that de la Mare's children's poetry is his most important contribution.  Pinto regards the later general poetry as a failure because there is too much interest in the musical quality to the detriment of high seriousness that one finds in Yeats.

Priestley, J. B. Figures in Modern Literature.  New York:  Dodd, Mead, 1924.

Punter, David.  The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present Day.  London: Longman, 1980.

An excellent discussion of de la Mare's ghost stories, which Punter compares to Henry James. He regards both writers as Gothic in that, like earlier Gothic fiction there is a friction between the real and the spectral.  Argues that de la Mare's characters attempt to place order on the darkness by writing ambiguous narratives in an attempt to make sense of things but that, ironically, do not fend off the darkness.

Rebora, Piero.  Poeti inglesi del primo novecento:  Robert Bridges, Laurence Binyon, Walter de la Mare, John Masefield, Harold monro, Lascelles Abercrombie, Rupert Brooke.  Firenze: Fussi, 1948.

Richards, I.A.  Poetries and Sciences:  A Reissue of Science and Poetry (1926, 1935) with Commentary.  New York: W.W. Norton, 1970.

Points out that de la Mare is not concerned with the things of reality, only in "phantasy."

Sullivan, Jack.  Elegant Nightmares:  The English Ghost Story from Le Fanu to Blackwood.  Athens: Ohio University Press, 1978.

In discussing ghost story writers influenced by M.R. James, Sullivan says that the influence of Poe and Hawthorne in de la Mare's "A.B.O." is more pronounced than James.

Swinnerton, Frank.  The Georgian Scene: A Literary Panorama.    Murray Hill, New York:  Farrar and Rinehart, 1934.

A lengthy study of early twentieth century English literature that devotes three pages to de la Mare.  Notes that "sure enough through much of de la Mare's work there passes the air of deserted houses, forgotten ghosts and the chilling melancholy of tombs and dread."

Wagenknecht, Edward.  Cavalcade of the English Novel.  New York: Henry Holt, 1943.

A study of selected novelists since the Renaissance, that concludes with de la Mare.  Studies the novels, especially The Return and the short stories, always noting de la Mare's mysticism, and his belief in the primacy of the imagination.

Walsh, William.  The Use of Imagination:  Educational Thought and the Literary Mind.  New York:  Barnes and Noble, 1959.

Assets that de la Mare is a minor writer, but studies his children's poetry as unique.  He concludes, "beneath the murmur of childish voices we hear a more ancient and wiser tongue, the language of myth and fairytale, dream and symbol."

Williams, Harold.  Modern English Writers:  Being a Study of Imaginative Literature, 1890-1914.  2 vols. Port Washington, NY:  Kennikat Press, 1970.

Two pages discuss de la Mare's earliest poetry.  Notes that he is at his best when he is whimsical and ethereal.