Memoirs of a Midget

By Walter John de la Mare (1873 - 1956), the English poet, short story writer and novelist. This classic 1921 novel, Memoirs of a Midget, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.

«One of the strongest and most enchanting works of fiction ever written.» - Alison Lurie

Miss M., a pretty and diminutive young woman with a passion for shells, fossils, flints, butterflies and stuffed animals, struggles to deal with her isolation from the rest of society due to her size. She tells of her early life and her tempestuous twentieth year in which she witnesses death, infatuation, suicide and madness.

An elegiac, misanthropic, sometimes perverse study of isolation, de la Mare's prize-winning classic is a dark and teasing riddle that seduces by its gentle charm and elegant prose.

REVIEWS
‘One of the strangest and most enchanting works of fiction ever written.’
Alison Lurie

‘A great book’
New York Times

‘A triumphant work of fiction: a portrait of a complex heroine who the reader will ultimately find quite as compelling as Jane [Eyre] or Cathy. You will be charmed and amazed by this odd, creepy tale.’
Observer

‘It sticks like a splinter in the mind’
Angela Carter

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) was born of a Scottish mother and a father descended from an old Huguenot family. His major works include the children's novel The Three Royal Monkeys and the long poem The Traveller. He was the recipient of much praise and many honours, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Memoirs of a Midget (Telegram).