Marriage, Children and The Influence of Walter De La Mare's Writings
While visiting her publisher, Margery Williams met Francisco Bianco, an Italian living in London, who was employed as the manager of one of the book departments. They were married in 1904 and became the parents of a son, Cecco and a daughter, Pamela, who twenty years later would be illustrating some of her mother's books. Margery considered motherhood a full-time job, requiring suspension of her writing activities.
In 1907 the family left England, traveling through Europe for the next three years, eventually settling in Turin, Italy. In August 1914 Italy, along with the rest of Europe, was plunged into World War I and Francisco Bianco found himself in an Italian Army uniform fighting for his country along with millions of other soldiers from many nations. While remaining on the homefront with the children, Margery Bianco gained hope and inspiration from the works of the poet she called her "spiritual mentor", Walter de la Mare, who she felt truly understood the mindset of children.
In 1914, Williams wrote a horror novel, The Thing in the Woods, about a werewolf in the Pennsylvania region. The Thing in the Woods was later republished in the US under the pseudonym "Harper Williams". The Thing in the Woods was known to H.P. Lovecraft, and some commentators think it may have influenced Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror".
Read more about this topic: Margery Williams
Famous quotes containing the words children, influence, walter, mare and/or writings:
“Play for young children is not recreation activity,... It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity.... Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“Nature has taken more care than the fondest parent for the education and refinement of her children. Consider the silent influence which flowers exert, no less upon the ditcher in the meadow than the lady in the bower. When I walk in the woods, I am reminded that a wise purveyor has been there before me; my most delicate experience is typified there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Class isn’t something you buy. Look at you. You have a $500 suit on and you’re still a lowlife.”
—Roger Spottiswoode, U.S. screenwriter, Walter Hill, and Larry Gross. Jack Cates (Nick Nolte)
“It’s a very odd thing—
As odd as can be—
That whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.;”
—Walter De La Mare (1873–1956)
“If someday I make a dictionary of definitions wanting single words to head them, a cherished entry will be “To abridge, expand, or otherwise alter or cause to be altered for the sake of belated improvement, one’s own writings in translation.””
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)