Memoirs of a Midget
Memoirs of a Midget
Author: Walter de la Mare
Desc: Miss M. the narrator of these fictional memoirs is a diminutive young woman (though just how diminutive the author never says) with a “passion for shells fossils flints butterflies and stuffed animals.” Miss M. tells of her early life as a dreamy orphan and in particular of her tempestuous twentieth year—in which she falls in love with a beautiful and ambitious full-sized woman and is courted by a male dwarf. Concluding that she must choose either to simply tolerate her difference or grow callous to it Miss M. resolves to become independent by offering herself up as a spectacle in a circus. [Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) wrote numerous novels short stories essays and poems. He was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Memoirs of a Midget. Other major works include the children’s novel The Three Royal Monkeys Henry Brocken The Return and Desert Islands.] [Alison Lurie is the author of many highly praised novels as well as two collections of essays on children’s literature Don’t Tell the Grown-Ups and Boys and Girls Forever. She has taught children’s literature and folklore at Cornell University.]