Walter de la Mare: poet, novelist

Walter de la Mare

It is the birthday of English poet and novelist Walter de la Mare (1873), whose poems and ghost stories intrigued British children for generations. After schooling, he went to work in the 1890s for Standard Oil Company in London as a bookkeeper. He was married, had a family but still found time to write. He worked for Standard Oil for 18 years. His first novel, Henry Brocken (1904), a tale of the supernatural, was published. Four years later, through the intervention of a friend with connections, he was granted a Civil List pension, allowing him to leave his job and focus on his writing. It afforded him the opportunity to  produce children's poetry, chilling ghost stories and one of his most memorable works, Memoirs of a Midget (1921), which some critics have called a tour de force. It is a fully realized fictional memoir of a diminutive woman whose story is supposedly being published after her death. It is left in the care of a friend, a standard-sized man who visited her throughout her life, and offers an introduction by way of explaining its publication. It begins with the narrator, Miss M, noting that newspaper stories about her were works of fiction in which the reporter, apparently to amuse his readers, made jokes about her physical features, suggesting, among other things, that she was an expert painter of miniatures and a changeling who could speak the fairy tongue. The book goes on to reveal a human being, regardless of size, with a mind and heart and thoughts, feelings and aspirations. The book won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Literature, one of Britain's most prestigious awards.The poetry of de la Mare has been compared with William Blake and Thomas Hardy.

Sir Hugh Walpole was popular in '20s, '30s

Hugh Walpole

It is the birthday of English novelist Sir Hugh Walpole (1884), whose  popular historical romance, Rogue Harries (1930), is set in 1730 in Cumberland, and tells the story of Francis Herries and her family who settle in a family estate there. Subsequent novels in the series, Judith Paris (1931), The Fortress (1932) and Vanessa (1933) bring the story of the family into the 20th century. Walpole believed the novels maintained the traditions and vitality of the English novel, though it explored nothing new. Walpole was a celebrated author in the 1920s and 1930s, and was in demand as a speaker in Britain and America. Early in his career, Henry James and Joseph Conrad, among others, encouraged his work. Virginia Woolf praised his attention to detail in his writing. In his novel, Cakes and Ale (1930), Somerset Maugham depicted him as superficial and ambitious. Kenneth Clark, T.S. Eliot and J.B. Priestly were among literary giants who sponge to Walpole's defense.  Two biographies, Walpole, Sir Hugh Seymour (1884-1941) (2004) and Hugh Walpole (1952), were published after his death.

Sax Rohmer created Dr. Fu Manchu series

Sax Rohmer

It is the birthday of English novelist Sax Rohmer (1883), who wrote the famed Dr. Fu Manchu mystery novels. The first one appeared as a magazine serial from October 1912 until June 1913. Fu Manchu was a master criminal given to unusual methods to carry out his murderous plots, including poisonous fungi and bacteria, cobras, pythons and groups of thieves and murderers. He supported his activities with white slavery and drug dealing. He was opposed in the series by Denis Nayland Smith, a detective in the Sherlock Holmes tradition but not nearly as clever. Fu Manchu became a stereotype villain and was featured not only in Rohmer's books but also in movies, television, radio and comics for more than 90 years.