They Walk Again. With an introduction by Walter de la Mare.

Bookseller Notes

A scarce book, this copy inscribed by the editor on the flyleaf: 'To R.N.G-A., With love and gratitude from Colin, May 4th 1931'. The recipient was Robert North Green-Armytage, a barrister and book-collector from Bath - whose collecting interests included Walter de la Mare, and who had cultivated a friendship with the family. The choice of poems in Faber's 1954 'Selected Poems' of Walter de la Mare' was made by Green-Armytage, whose other literary connections included being the uncle of Vivien Greene. Laid in, within its original envelope, is a 2pp. autograph letter from Colin de la Mare to the same, on the headed paper of his parents' home at Hill House in Taplow, thanking Green-Armytage for the invitation to speak at the Bath Preservation Society - joking (presumably) that he will only commit to such engagements if 'there is a Duke in the chair', and admitting that the idea caused him alarm, and 'I might have disgraced you'. He closes by inviting Green-Armytage to come to London to see Elisabeth Bergner in the film 'Der Traumende Mund', calling her 'the finest actress that I have ever seen', and with a post-scriptum in reference to the recipient's son, Adrian ('ask him to put me on to something "hot"!') - the latter a Merton friend of Louis MacNeice, and the author of a couple of books on religious themes.Colin de la Mare was Walter de la Mare's youngest son, aged only 25 when he edited this highly-regarded anthology - his relative youth may in part explain his reluctance towards public speaking. It is his only published literary work, to which he contributes a slender prefatory note, largely in acknowledgement, followed by his father's more substantial 23pp. exposition on its theme. Walter de la Mare also provides the contribution 'All Hallows'; other contributors include M.R. James, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, Sheridan Le Fanu, Edith Wharton, E.F. Benson, Richard Middleton, J.D. Beresford, Oliver Onions, et al. The editor's elder brother Richard was for many years principal director at the book's publisher. Mabel Dickinson Lapthorn, the dustjacket designer, was an Australian-born and London-based artist, who gained a reputation for her film posters, and for her book cover-designs in England (these numbering only a few) and Amsterdam - where she was particularly associated with the work of Sigrid Undset for publisher J.M. Meulenhoff.