Walter de la Mare
Walter de la Mare
was born on April the 25th, 1873 in Charlton, Kent, England. He died on June
22nd, 1956, in Twickenham, Middlesex, England and is buried at St. Paul's
Cathedral, London, England. He attended St. Paul's Cathedral Choir School,
London, before working for the Anglo-American (Standard) Oil Company in London
as a clerk in the department of statistics between the years 1890 and 1908.
Subsequently, de la Mare was able to concentrate on writing full-time thanks
to the offer of a government pension.
The awards and honours
that de la Mare received during his lifetime of writing stories, novels, poetry
and criticism - not to mention his compiling and editing of anthologies -
include: Polignac Prize, Royal Society of Literature, 1911, for The Return; James Tait
Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, 1922, for Memoirs of a Midget; Carnegie
Medal, Library Association, 1947, for Collected Stories for Children; Companion
of Honour, 1948; Order of Merit, 1953; Foyle Poetry Prize, 1954; honorary
degrees from several universities, including Cambridge, Oxford, St. Andrews,
London.