Walter John de la Mare OM CH (/ˈdɛləˌmɛər/;[1] 25 April 1873 – 22 June 1956) was an English poet, short story writer and novelist.

He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners",[2] and for his psychological horror short fiction, including "Seaton's Aunt", "The Green Room" and "All Hallows".

[4] De la Mare was born at 83, Maryon Road, Charlton, then in the county of Kent but now part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

De la Mare was educated at St Paul's Cathedral School, then worked from 1890 to 1908 in the statistics department of the London office of Standard Oil.

In 1892 de la Mare joined the Esperanza Amateur Dramatics Club, where he met and fell in love with (Constance) Elfrida Ingpen, the leading lady, who was ten years older than him.

[8] On 7 September 1929, his daughter, Janette de la Mare[9] married Donald John Ringwood in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England.

[12] Lovecraft singled out for praise de la Mare's short stories "Seaton's Aunt", "The Tree", "Out of the Deep", "Mr Kempe", "A Recluse" and "All Hallows", along with his novel The Return.

A number of later writers of supernatural fiction, including Robert Aickman, Ramsey Campbell,[13] David A. McIntee and Reggie Oliver, have cited de la Mare's ghost stories as inspirational.

[14] For children de la Mare wrote the fairy tale The Three Mulla Mulgars (1910, later retitled The Three Royal Monkeys), praised by the literary historian Julia Briggs as a "neglected masterpiece"[15] and by the critic Brian Stableford as a "classic animal fantasy".

[17] Joan Aiken cited some of de la Mare's short stories, such as "The Almond Tree" and "Sambo and the Snow Mountains", for their sometimes unexplained quality, which she also employed in her own work.

By adulthood (de la Mare proposed), the childlike imagination has either retreated forever or grown bold enough to face the real world.

In 1944, when the protagonist David Staunton is sixteen, de la Mare's play is produced by the pupils of his sister's school in Toronto.

[33] Symposium by Muriel Spark quotes de la Mare's poem "Fare Well": "Look thy last on all things lovely / Every hour.