A.E. Houseman

A Shropshire Lad

(1896) and

Last Poems

(1922) apparently published works of British poet and scholar Alfred Edward Housman, brother of Laurence Housman and Clemence Housman.

To his fellow noted classicists, his critical editing of

Manilius

earned him enduring fame.

The eldest of seven children and a gifted student, Housman won a scholarship to Oxford, where he performed well but for various reasons neglected philosophy and ancient history subjects that failed to pique his interest and consequently failed to gain a degree. Frustrated, he gained at job as a patent clerk but continued his research in the classical studies and published a variety of well-regarded papers. After a decade with such his reputation, he ably obtain a position at University College London in 1902. In 1911, he took the Kennedy professorship of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for the rest of his life.

As a scholar, Housman concentrated on Latin. He published a five-volume critical edition, the definitive text, of his work on "

Astronomica

" of Manilus from 1903 to 1930. Housman the poet produced lyrics that express a Romantic pessimism in a spare, simple style. In some of the asperity and directness in lyrics and also scholarship, Housman defended common sense with a sarcastic wit that helped to make him widely feared.

There are several biographies of Housman, and a The Housman Society http://www.housman-society.co.uk/