Walter de la Mare Short Stories for ChildrenWalter de la MareLabel: Giles de la Mare PublishersDescription: The publication of Short Stories for Children celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of Walter de la Mare's death. It is also the culmination of a major literary enterprise. For many people Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) is as great a writer of fiction as of poetry. But the majority of his short stories of which there are a hundred have long been unavailable. Short Stories brings them all together in three volumes in the first comprehensive collection to be published. The third and last volume Short Stories for Children starts with Broomsticks and Other Tales of 1925 with its twelve stories and continues with The Lord Fish of 1933 with seven stories. It includes three distinctive stories 'Pigtails Ltd' 'The Thief' and 'A Nose' that have never been reprinted since they originally appeared in Broomsticks. Quirky disparate unpredictable acutely observed sometimes frightening and often preoccupied with states of mind and personal identity these stories have much in common with the adult stories. Some of them are peopled with giants witches kind elves evil and spiteful fairies and imprisoned maidens in castles but most are not.We find ourselves in railway trains a mansion in the City of London another Elizabethan one in a mysterious tract of country a remote farm house near the sea a waterlogged forest a drawing-room being watched by a fly; and among other things we encounter a wise monkey a haunted cat a fish magician a baron transmogrified into a donkey a thief desperate to be burgled a man who believes he has a wax nose and a godmother celebrating her 350th birthday.As in de la Mare's poems everyday reality may at any time become undercut by disturbing uncertainty and dark though not always malign forces. A full understanding of the poems and stories is impossible without knowledge of both. Vivid and timeless Bold's original woodcut designs and Rex Whistler's original engravings have been used to illustrate the two parts of the book.
