Strangers and Pilgrims

by Walter de la Mare

Sewn signatures, printed on 130gsm acid-free paper, and bound by Bath Press in grey wibalin cloth stamped in gold, with a silk ribbon marker and head and tailbands. 500 copies.

Contents: Introduction, A:B:O., The Moon's Miracle, The Riddle, The Giant, The Quincunx, The Pear-Tree, The Bird of Travel, Seaton's Aunt, The Vats, Promise at Dusk, The Creatures, Miss Jemima, The Looking-Glass, Out of the Deep, Winter, The Green Room, The Scarecrow, Alice's Godmother, Mr Kempe, A Recluse, All Hallows, The Game At Cards, Crewe, The House, 'What Dreams May Come', Strangers and Pilgrims, A Revenant, The Guardian, An Anniversary, Music, Bad Company, Bibliographical Information.

'Walter de la Mare's stories have a claim to be the most subtle and strangely powerful depictions of the supernatural in English fiction of the twentieth century.' So says Mark Valentine in his introduction to these thirty-one uncanny tales. Amongst this selection are some of the best known of de la Mare's stories: 'Seaton's Aunt', 'Out of the Deep', 'All Hallows', and also some of the more obscure: 'Miss Jemima', 'A Game at Cards', Alice's Godmother'. All illustrate the writer's enigmatic relationship with alternative layers of existence and a sense of the unknown, conveyed in beautifully restrained prose.

There are few overt exterior forces encountered; de la Mare's characters 'do not have to face monstrosities of any sort: but they are haunted nevertheless; by loneliness, by lovelessness, by loss.' This concentration on 'queerness and quiet tragedy' is tempered by the writer's poetic powers of description, particularly his depiction of the English countryside. Strangers and Pilgrims is the definitive collection of de la Mare's supernatural and psychological stories.

Genres: Horror, 20th Century, Short Stories, Weird Fiction, Fiction

523 pages, Hardcover

First published June 11, 2007

About the author

Walter John de la Mare was an English poet, short story writer and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", and for his psychological horror short fiction, including "Seaton's Aunt" and "All Hallows". In 1921, his novel Memoirs of a Midget won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and his post-war Collected Stories for Children won the 1947 Carnegie Medal for British children's books.

Reviews

[Patrick.G.P · Rating 5 out of 5]

The strange and quiet fiction of Walter de la Mare ranks among some of the finest I’ve ever come across. Steeped in subtle nuances, the ambiance and ambiguity de la Mare weaves through his prose is everything; The dim coldness of a winter night has rarely been captured so perfectly as in “The House”, where the time of night brings with it a vast loneliness that seems to reverberate through the titular house and occupant. The pervasive, brooding atmosphere that lingers over the aunt’s house in “Seaton’s Aunt”, implying that something is amiss, yet through de la Mare’s beautiful and ambiguous prose, it is uncertain just what makes it all so uncanny. Rightly hailed as one of the finest ghost stories ever written, re-reading it only seems to deepen the eerie mystery that surrounds it. The uncertainty that lies over his best work is truly remarkable, and in tales such as “A Recluse”, “Mr. Kempe” and “Crewe” a deep sense of discomfort remains long after one has finished reading them. It is easy to see their influence on the particular brand of strange stories written by Robert Aickman later.

I’ve not read another author who so deftly displaces the notion of time as de la Mare, which he frequently presents as intrusions from the past. His stories often linger in an ethereal, dreamlike state as if outside of time. “The Bird of Travel” and “Alice’s Godmother” both see the characters faced with something that reaches out from somewhere beyond time itself. It’s not from some spectral presence that fear, loneliness and the unearthly presents itself in de la Mare’s writing, but rather through the absence of something tangible, which can be far more disconcerting. A line from his exquisite “Out of the Deep” impeccably sums this up: “When there hasn't been anything there, nothing can be said to have vanished from the place where it has not been.”

The stunning collection Strangers and Pilgrims from Tartarus Press contains 31 of the ghostly and peculiar tales de la Mare published from the 1890s up to the 1950s, shortly before his death. The edition also has a wonderful and insightful introduction by Mark Valentine who briefly discusses the stories and their importance as well as the life of their author. The volume is sadly out of print and quite expensive at specialty dealers, but connoisseurs of ghostly fiction should make it a priority to add this volume to their collection. Walter de la Mare’s stories read as a faint ripple across reality, lifting the veil just enough for the reader to glimpse the strangeness that lies behind it. After experiencing his quietly enigmatic and beautiful prose it's hard to look at reality in the same light again.

[Leonie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ambivalent about this one, but at its best it was certainly worth me reading. It's a collection of short stories about ghosts, fairies and the uncanny in general. The stories are arranged in the chronological order of writing, which perhaps accounts for my feeling most positive about this in the middle. Some of them are quite fairytale-y, some are stories of early 20th century life with an unexplained feeling of something disturbingly inexplicable lurking, and some of them are fairly traditional ghost stories. There are lots of churches and churchyards. They're atmospheric. The words are pretty. I'm not entirely sure they were always in the right order, but then again I'm not sure they were in the wrong order either. De la Mare is all about the uncanny as experience of otherness, chilling not quite so much in the sense of frightening but in its lack of the warmth of familiarity. The occasional fairy plays basically much the same role as a ghost: the sighting transfixes and transfigures the seer; they never get to know anything beyond their initial confrontation with its existence and they are marked by the knowledge that it, and another kind of reality, exists. The introduction makes much of the idea that most of the uncanny cannot be proven to be outside the characters' minds and what really haunts them is themselves. This is kind of true of most ghost stories and I'm not sure it seemed to be more true of these. It's usually the mental effects of the uncanny that is presented as the real horror. But yes, De la Mare has his own version of this. He puts you into that cold, unhuman place but then I guess I wanted him to do more with it, at least sometimes. After a while I started to want there to be a next step.

[Quentin Crisp]

This is going to be hard for me to update, as I've started reading these stories out of order. 'Seaton's Aunt', though, is undoubtedly one of the best 'supernatural' tales ever written.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.48⭐

Introduction by Mark Valentine 4.5⭐
A: B: O. 4⭐
The Moon's Miracle 3⭐
The Riddle 4⭐
The Giant 2.75⭐
The Quincunx 3.5⭐
The Pear-Tree 3.25⭐
The Bird of Travel 3.5⭐
Seaton's Aunt 3.25⭐
The Vats 2⭐
Promise at Dusk 3.25⭐
The Creatures 3⭐
Miss Jemima 4.25⭐
The Looking-Glass 3.5⭐
Out of the Deep 3.5⭐
Winter 3⭐
The Green Room 3.25⭐
The Scarecrow 4.25⭐
Alice's Godmother 3.5⭐
Mr. Kempe 4.25⭐
A Recluse 4⭐
All Hallows 4.25⭐
The Game at Cards 3.25⭐
Crewe 4⭐
The House 4⭐
What Dreams May Come 4⭐
Strangers and Pilgrims 3⭐
A Revenant 3.5⭐
The Guardian 3⭐
An Anniversary 2.5⭐
Music 2⭐
Bad Company 4.25⭐